Digital Reading Room 2.0 -- HIST 382: Contemporary China

HIST 382: Contemporary China Report a Broken Link

Welcome to Global Studies 382/History 382: Contemporary China, a three-credit, senior-level course which is designed to provide a thematic discussion of a number of major topics in post-Maoist China. Particular emphasis is placed on the dynamic but paradoxical impacts of globalization and modernization on various aspects of Chinese society. Each of the 10 units of the course begins with a historical overview of events that have transpired since the 1949 revolution, which provide students with background knowledge necessary to understand China’s post-reform years.

Unit 2

Walder, Andrew. “Organized Dependency and Cultures of Authority in Chinese Industry.” Journal of Asian Studies 43 (1983): 51–72.

O’Brien, Kevin J. “Implementing Political Reform in China’s Villages.” Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs 32 (1994): 33-59.

Moore, Rebecca R. “China’s Fledgling Civil Society: A Force for Democratization?” World Policy Journal 18, no.1 (Spring 2001): 56–66.

Teresa Wright, “The China Democracy Party and the Politics of Protest in the 1980s–1990s.” China Quarterly 172 (2002): 906–926.

Unit 3

Solinger, Dorothy. “State and Society in Urban China in the Wake of the 16th Party Congress.” China Quarterly 176 (2003): 943–959.

Blecher, Marc. “Hegemony and Workers’ Politics in China.” China Quarterly, 170 (2002): 283–303.

Unger, Jonathan. “China’s Conservative Middle Class,” Far Eastern Economic Review 169, no. 3 (April 2006) 27–31.

Unit 4

Lee, Charles. “Introduction” and “Preconceptions and Reality.” Part One in Cowboys and Dragons: Shattering Cultural Myths to Advance Chinese-American Business. Chicago: Dearborn Trade Publications, 2003, x–45.

Unit 5

Yingshi, Yu. “The Radicalization of China in the 20th Century.” Daedalus 122 (Spring 1993): 125–150.

Ben, Xu. “Chinese Populist Nationalism: Its Intellectual Politics and Moral Dilemma.” Representations 76, no. 1 (2001): 120–140.

Unit 6

Lu, Hsun. “A Madman’s Diary.” In Lu Hsun, Selected Stories. Translated by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Young. New York: W. W. Norton, 1977, 7–18. "A Madman's Diary", from SELECTED STORIES FOR LU HSUN by Lu Hsun, translated by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang. Copyright 1960. Used by permission of W. W. Notron & Company, Inc.

Jie, Zhang. “Love Must Not Be Forgotten.” In Love Must Not Be Forgotten. Translated by Gladys Yang. San Francisco: China Books and Periodicals, 1986, 1–13.

Zhang, Chengzi. “Why Herdsmen Sing About ‘Mother.’” in Prize-Winning Stories from China: 1978–1979. Edited by Liu Xinwu et al. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1981, 123–135.

Shaogong, Han. “Deaf-Mute and His ‘Suona.’” In Contemporary Chinese Short Stories. Beijing: Chinese Literature, 1983, 166–199. Reproduced with permission.

Hua, Yu. “1986.” In China’s Avant-Garde Fiction. Edited by Jing Wang. Durham NC: Duke University Press, 1998, 74–114.

Listening Assignment

Cui Jian, “Nothing to My Name”

Required Readings for Assignment One, Topic A

Shi, Tianjian. “Village Committee Elections in China: Institutionalist Tactics for Democracy.” World Politics 51 (1999: April) 385–412.

Unger, Jonathan. “China’s Conservative Middle Class.” Far Eastern Economic Review 169, no. 3 (2006: April) 27–31.

Chen, Peng. “Between the State and Labor: The Conflict of Chinese Trade Unions’ Double Identity in Market Reform.” The China Quarterly 176 (2003) 1006–1028.

Moore, Rebecca R. “China’s Fledgling Civil Society: A Force for Democratization?” World Policy Journal 18, no. 1 (Spring 2001) 56–66.

Unit 7

Tyson, James, and Ann Tyson. “‘The Moon Reflecting the Sunlight’: The Village Woman.” In China Off Center: Mapping the Margins of the Middle Kingdom. Edited by Susan D. Blum and Lionel M. Jensen. University of Hawai’i Press, 2002: 249–270.

Davis, Deborah, Pierre Landry, Yusheng Peng, and Jin Xiao. “Gendered Pathways to Rural Schooling: The Interplay of Wealth and Local Institutions.” China Quarterly 189 (2007): 60–82.

Aiping, Mu. “To Have a Son: The One-child Family Policy and Economic Change in Rural China.” In Women of China: Economic and Social Transformation. Edited by Jackie West and Zhao Minghua. New York: Palgrave Publishers, 1999.

Unit 8

Leung, Beatrice. “China’s Religious Freedom Policy: The Art of Managing Religious Activity.” China Quarterly 184 (2005): 894–913.

Keith, Ronald C. and Zhiqiu Lin. “The ‘Falun Gong Problem’: Politics and the Struggle for the Rule of Law in China.” China Quarterly 175 (2003): 623–642.

Unit 9

Brown, Melissa J. “Ethnic Classification and Culture: The Case of the Tujia in Hubei, China.” Asian Ethnicity 2, no. 1 (2001): 55–72.

Smith, Joanne N. “‘Making Culture Matter:’ Symbolic, Spatial and Social Boundaries between Uyghurs and Han Chinese.” Asian Ethnicity 3, no. 2 (2002): 153–174.

Listening Assignments

Teng Ge'er, “The Land of Blue Wolf”.

Teng Ge'er, “Mongols”

Meiliqige, “Sun in the Grassland Rises Never to Go Dawn”

Zheng Zun, “Return to Lhsa”

Unit 10

Wademan, Andrew. “The Intensification of Corruption in China.” China Quarterly 180 (2004): 895–921.