|
Professor Charlene Makley |
Office: 312 Vollum Office Hours: Tues, Thurs. 4:10-5:30 |
Course Description (Spring 2011)
Full course for one semester. China's "open door" policies and
economic reforms since the death of Mao Zedong and the end of the Cultural
Revolution have radically altered the state's ability to control the mass
media and popular cultural production. This course examines the implications
of this process for national, ethnic and gender identities among diverse
citizens of the Chinese state on one hand, and for CCP efforts to maintain
its political hegemony on the other. Through readings, film and video
clips and discussions, we will explore different genres of cultural production
in contemporary China in their sociohistorical contexts and in relation
to recent Marxist and feminist debates about the production, interpretation
and subversion of dominant ideologies in mass media. This perspective
will shed light on the actually complex processes through which "popular"
and "elite", "state" and "local" contexts
are constructed in China, and allow us to interrogate recent assumptions
construing "globalization", "westernization", "sinification"
, or "modernization" as inevitably homogenizing and leveling
forces.