SNRSCH3311 - ANTH 2374 Anthro of Modern China

Course Description

This course offers an introduction to the culture and society of the contemporary People's Republic of China. The first half of the course provides a historically and ethnographically contextualized examination of the dramatic transformations undergone by Chinese society over the last century, juxtaposing the pre-1949 Republican period against the tumultuous sociocultural and political economic changes in China in the decades immediately following the 1949 Chinese Communist Revolution, and, in particular, examining the impact of Maoist period and post-Mao period political-economic and sociocultural movements on the everyday lives of Chinese people in both rural and urban contexts. During the second half of the course, we will focus on recent ethnographic writings published by China anthropologists which, taken together, encompass such key issues as the contours of China's distinctive narrative of socialist modernity, the profound significance of the rural/ urban divide in the post-1949 PRC; shifting PRC constructions of gender and sexuality and the impact of Maoist and post-Mao transformations on women's status, the statuses and representations of the more than 55 minority peoples who reside in China alongside Han Chinese and the emergence of ethnic tourism, the politics of rural health care, the nature of the relationship between Traditional Chinese Medicine and biomedicine, and the politics of HIV/ AIDS in the PRC. We will also utilize a number of excellent ethnographic films throughout the course.

Notes

Auditing a Course:

As a Temple Senior Scholar, you will audit regularly scheduled undergraduate courses. That means that you will share classes with today’s Temple students—study the subject, do the readings and participate in class discussions—but you will not take tests or turn in written assignments. You will not receive a grade, and you will not receive academic credit for the course, but you will have the excitement of learning in a modern atmosphere.