The seminar focuses on the post-reform period and is organized around the theme of consumption. Consumption is often dealt with in the economic sense, as the other side of production and a portion of GDP. Our interest in this term and its application to Chinese society concerns its sociological meaning, which relates to the use and using up of things (Warde 2005). This approach provides both a thematic guide and a theoretical angle with which to examine key developments in contemporary Chinese society as well as the social practices and institutions therein. The course’s topics include the coalescence of the urban middle-class, the education system and its reforms, food security, user technology (such as WeChat), tourism, ethnicity, and gender. Pairing these topics with an overarching conceptual framework is intended to help prepare students to develop their M.A. thesis on sociological topics relating to China and East Asia. The main course material consists of recent readings in English by renowned Chinese and non-Chinese social scientists.
- Lehrende(r): Connor Malloy