2020-21 Academic Catalog

This survey course of twentieth-century China examines how ordinary people interacted with Mao, the chief architect of Communist China. We will scrutinize social change over time by looking at patterns of contestations and negotiations between Mao and his rivals among peasants, workers, students, women, intellectuals, ethnic minorities, and local cadres. Topics include the operation of the new democracy, social classification and distribution, food and famine politics, the changing meaning of family and education, body and biomedicine, mass science and archaeological projects, and Mao’s exhibition culture. Students will engage with images, memoirs, autobiographies, interviews, oral histories, films, “garbage materials,” and archival sources.