150067 PS Cultures of Chinese Postsocialism (2023S)

This course aims to explore connections between culture, politics, and socioeconomic development in the contemporary PRC through the conceptual prism of postsocialism –variously described as “a label of historical periodization”, “a structure of feelings”, “a set of aesthetic practices”, and “a regime of political economy” (Zhang Yingjin, 2007) that has defined China’s cultural zeitgeist since the late twentieth-century. It examines significant intellectual and cultural debates and new aesthetic trends emerged in the fields of Chinese literature, film, performance, media, and visual culture since the 1980s in the context of the country’s transition from Maoism to the new era of market-oriented reforms. Further aims are to assess how the history and memory of the socialist era have been constructed and represented in the literary, artistic, and media production of the postsocialist period and to evaluate contemporary postsocialist responses to the cultural and ideological legacy of socialism – diversely articulated as critical reflection, alienation, denial, parody, or nostalgia.

Teaching methods include text-, performance- and film analysis, reading and discussion of academic literature, group and individual presentations, and individual written work. With the support of selected media resources (films, documentaries, performance video-recordings, interviews) and related scholarship, by the end of the course participants will have familiarized themselves with theories of Chinese postsocialism and key developments in contemporary Chinese culture, arts, and literature, as well as enhanced their understanding of the intersections of culture, history, and politics in the PRC since the last two decades of the twentieth-century.