ATH 272, 273 - Chinese Culture & Society

Course unit(s): 1
Meets GAR: Meets general academic requirements SL and DE (and is a linked IL course when offered as 273).
This course encourages students to think critically about many of the major developments in Chinese culture and society that have occurred during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, with an emphasis on understanding both cultural change and continuity in China. Drawing on ethnographic material and case studies from rural and urban China over the traditional, revolutionary, and reform periods, we will examine a number of topics in the anthropological study of China, including family and kinship; marriage, reproduction, and death; popular religion; women and gender; the Cultural Revolution; social and economic reforms; gift exchange and guanxi networks; changing perceptions of space and place; globalization and modernity.