Syllabus

Contemporary Society in the People’s Republic of China
Syllabus v 1.1
SISEA/SOC 464 (Spring 2012)
Instructor: William Lavely
lavely@u.washington.edu
Meeting: M-W 3:30-5:20 in MGH 241
Office hours: F 11:00-12:00 in SAV 275
Course description: This course provides an overview of social change in China since 1949. The
first half of the course provides a basic account of the establishment of socialist institutions in
rural and urban China, and describes patterns of social stratification, mobility, and social control
in the Mao period. The second half focuses on particular trends and novel phenomena in the
era of market reform—the rise of an urban middle class, the emergence of the individual, and
the post-Mao “moral crisis”. The class format consists of lectures, video documentaries, and
discussion.
The class is for upper division and graduate students. No prior knowledge of Chinese society is
assumed, but students with little knowledge of Chinese history and culture should consult an
introductory text, such as John K. Fairbank and Edwin O. Reischauer, China: Tradition and
Transformation or Immanuel C.Y. Hsu, The Rise of Modern China.
Course readings: Most readings are available through the Libraries website under electronic
journals. Others are available on the course website at http://courses.washington.edu/sisea464.
Two texts are available for purchase at the University Bookstore:
Li Zhang, In Search of Paradise: Middle class living in a Chinese metropolis (Cornell,
2010).
Arthur Kleinman et al., Deep China: The moral life of the person (California 2011).
Course requirements: The course requirements consist of (1) an in-class midterm, (2) five
response papers (out of several assigned); (3) a short paper; (4) a take home final exam. The
response paper questions and the short paper will be described in separate documents. For
calculating the course grade, the midterm will count 25%; the response papers together will
count 25%; the short paper 25%; the final 25%.

Due dates:
• Response papers are due Monday following the week assigned.
• The in-class midterm will be on Wednesday May 2.
• The short paper is due on Wednesday May 9.
• The final will be distributed in class on Wednesday May 30.
• The final should be delivered to Savery 203 no later than June 7 at 4:20 PM, with a
digital copy posted to instructors e-mail (lavely@uw.edu)
Graduate Students: Graduate students may elect to substitute a longer substantive paper for
other course requirements. Such a project should be approved by the instructor in advance.
SISEA/SOC 464 Syllabus

Week 1: Introduction
3/26 Introduction and overview
Video documentary: China: A Century of Revolution I: 1-6 (Ambrica Productions 1989)
3/28 Late imperial Chinese society
Kulp, Daniel Harrison. 1925 [1972]. Village polity. Pp. 106-134 in Country Life in South
China: The Sociology of Familism (New York: Teacher’s College, Columbia
University; reprinted by Ch’eng Wen, Taipei).
van der Sprenkel, Sybille. 1962. Some relevant aspects of Chinese social structure. Pp.
6-27 in Legal Institutions in Manchu China: A Sociological Analysis. London
School of Economics Monographs on Social Anthropology No. 24 (New York:
Humanities Press).
Week 2: Twentieth Century Revolutions
4/2 Republican era society: rural stratification
Video documentary: China: A Century of Revolution I: 7-14 (Ambrica Productions 1989)
Mao Zedong. 1927. Report on an investigation of the peasant movement in Hunan.
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-
1/mswv1_2.htm
Fei, Hsiao-tung. 1946. Peasant and gentry: an interpretation of Chinese social structure
and its changes. The American Journal of Sociology 52, 1: 1-17. [jstor]
4/4 Rural and urban revolutions
Video documentary: China: A Century of Revolution II: 1-8 (Ambrica Productions 1994)
Yang, C.K. 1959 [1966]. Class stability and mobility. Pp. 119-127 in A Chinese Village in
Early Communist Transition (Cambridge: The M.I.T. Press).
SISEA/SOC 464 Syllabus

Yang, C.K. 1959 [1966]. Class struggle as the first step of land reform (pp. 131-145);
Confiscation and redistribution of land (pp. 146-152); Establishing the new
power structure (pp. 167-175).
Week 3: Collectivization, the Great Leap, and the Cultural Revolution
4/9 Collectivization and the Great Leap
Video documentary: China: A Century of Revolution, Part II: 9-16 (Ambrica Productions
1994)
Yang, Jisheng. 2010. Preface to Tombstone. Journal of Contemporary China 19, 66:
755-776.
Kung, James Kai-sing and Justin Yifu Lin. 2003. The causes of China’s great leap famine.
Economic Development and Cultural Change 52, 1: 51-73.
4/11 The Cultural Revolution
Immanuel C. Y. Hsu. 2000. The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Pp. 689-706 in
The Rise of Modern China (New York: Oxford University Press.).
Joel Andreas. 2002. Battling over Political and Cultural Power during the Chinese
Cultural Revolution. Theory and Society 31, 4: 463-519.
B. Michael Frolic. 1980. “Down with Stinking Intellectuals”. Pages 71-86 in Mao’s
People: Sixteen Portraits of Life in Revolutionary China (Cambridge: Harvard).
Week 4: Art and Culture; Urban Social Organization
4/16 Art and socialist culture
Mao Zedong. 1942. Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art (May 1942).
Available on line at:
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-
3/mswv3_08.htm
SISEA/SOC 464 Syllabus

Video: Lei Feng. Dir. Dong Zhaoqi, 1963. 78 min.
4/18 Social control and the civil society debate
Walder, Andrew G. 1983. Organized dependency and cultures of authority in Chinese
industry. The Journal of Asian Studies 43, 1: 51-76. [jstor]
Frolic, B. Michael. 1997. “State-Led Civil Society”. Chapter 2 (pp. 46-67) in Timothy
Brook and B. Michael Frolic (eds.) Civil Society in China (Armonk, NY: M.E.
Sharpe).
Chan, Cheris Shun-ching. 2004. The Falun Gong in China: a sociological perspective.
The China Quarterly 179: 665-683.
Shang Xiaoyan, Xiaoming Wu and Yue Wu. 2005. Welfare provision for vulnerable
children: the missing role of the state. The China Quarterly 181: 122-136.
Week 5: Market Reform
4/23 Market Reform and the rural-urban divide
Video documentary: Born Under the Red Flag, Part I (Ambrica Productions 1989)
Barry Naughton. 2007. Market Transition: Strategy and Process. Pp. 85-111 in The
Chinese Economy: Transitions and Growth (Cambridge: M.I.T.).
Barry Naughton. 2007. The urban-rural divide. Pp. 113-136 in The Chinese Economy:
Transitions and Growth (Cambridge: M.I.T.).
4/25 The Policy to Plan and Limit Births
Gu Baochang, Wang Feng, Guo Zhigang, Zhang Erli. 2007. China’s local and national
fertility policies at the end of the twentieth century. Population and
Development Review 33, 1.
SISEA/SOC 464 Syllabus

Wang Feng. 2005. Can China afford to continue its one-child policy? Asia Pacific Issues
No. 77. East-West Center.
Video: China’s Only Child. NOVA 1984. 55 minutes.
Week 6: Missing Girls; Midterm exam
4/30 Missing girls
Chu Junhong. 2001. Prenatal sex determination and sex-selective abortion in rural
central China. Population and Development Review 27, 2: 259-281.
Christophe Guilmoto. 2009. The Sex Ratio Transition in Asia. Population and
Development Review 35, 3: 519-549.
5/2 In-class Midterm Examination
Week 7: China’s New Middle Class
5/7 Zhang, In Search of Paradise, chs1-4
Video: Last Train Home. Dir. Lixin Fan. 87 minutes.
5/9 Zhang, In Search of Paradise, chs 5-7
Short paper due
Week 8: The Changing Moral Landscape
5/14 Emergence of the individual
SISEA/SOC 464 Syllabus

Yunxiang Yan. 2010. The Chinese Path to Individualization. British Journal of Sociology
61,3: 489-512.
Yanxiang Yan, The Changing Moral Landscape (Kleinman ch 1)
5/16 China’s sexual revolution
Everett Yuehong Zhang, China’s Sexual Revolution (Kleinman ch 3)
Week 9: Mental health
5/21 Psychiatry
Sing Lee, Depression: Coming of Age in China (Kleinman ch 5)
Video: Oedipus in China. Boudouin Koenig 2008. 52 min.
5/23 Stigma and Suicide
Wu Fei, Suicide, a Modern Problem in China (Kleinman ch 6)
Guo and Kleinman, Stigma: HIV/AIDS, Mental Illness, and China’s Nonpersons (Kleinman
ch 7)
Week 10: Conclusions
5/28: NO CLASS—Memorial Day Holiday
5/30 Conclusions Take home final distributed
TBA
SISEA/SOC 464 Syllabus