2020-21 Academic Catalog

What is cultural about the Cultural Revolution in China? What is Chinese about it? This course explores the process of making the revolution that has left an indelible mark on the country that hosts a quarter of the world’s population. Students will examine tabloids, wall posters, cartoons, photographs, pamphlets, play scripts, rumor mills, memoirs, films, and party documents to independently assess the official CCP verdict on it as a “failure.” Themes include democracy and development in making a revolution, social stratification, spectacles and story-telling, legitimization of violence, personality formation, operations of memory, and competing notions of time in historical thinking.