ANTH 354 - Chinese History and Culture Since 1911

This course explores Chinese culture and history since 1911 through film, ethnography, and historical texts. Topics include war, revolution, gender, socialism, economic reform, and cultural identity. Students analyze everyday life, memory, and the contested meanings of Chineseness across diverse contexts.

Breadth Area(s) Satisfied: GE-UD-4 - Upper Division Social and Behavioral Sciences
Prerequisites: Completion of GE Areas 1A, 1B, 1C and GE-2 with grade C- (CR) or better (GE Areas A1, A2, A3 and B4 for students on the 2024-25 or earlier catalogs).
Strongly Recommended Preparation: Upper division status (greater than 60 earned semester units) and completion of lower division GE Area 4 requirements (Area D1-2 requirements for students on the 2024-25 or earlier catalogs).
Possible Instructional Methods: Online-Asynchronous.
Grading: A-F or CR/NC (student choice).
Course Typically Offered: Variable Intermittently


Student Learning Outcomes - Upon successful completion of this course students will be able to:
 

1. Identify the basic features of Chinese social institutions, cultural beliefs, and cultural practices;
2. discuss key events and transformations in modern Chinese history since 1911;
3. analyze how kinship, gender, and memory shaped everyday life across different eras;
4. interpret films and ethnographies as cultural texts that reflect and critique social change;
5. compare state narratives of modern Chinese history with personal, local, and ethnographic perspectives; and
6. evaluate competing claims to Chinese identity in mainland, minority, Taiwanese, and Hong Kong contexts.

1. Analyze how power and social identity affect social outcomes for different cultural and economic groups using methods of social science inquiry and vocabulary appropriate to those methods.
2. Demonstrate an understanding of and ability to apply accurately disciplinary concepts of the social or behavioral sciences.
3. Demonstrate an understanding of and the ability to effectively plan or conduct research using an appropriate method of the social or behavioral sciences.