EALC 550/ANTH499 The Anthropology of Modern China (Spring, 2021)
Wednesdays, 7-9:50 PM (CST) via ZOOM
https://illinois.zoom.us/j/81031095221?pwd=VHJEMWpuSXI1T3lJeE41SEZyQTlPUT09
Class website: https://learn.illinois.edu/course/view.php?id=57319
Instructor: Dr. Jeffrey T. Martin, jmart@illinois.edu
Office Hours: Thu 12-3PM or by appointment
Are we living at the beginning of a “Chinese Century”?
This is the overarching question that will guide our conversation in this class. We will not, however, try to answer it. Rather, we will focus on interrogating the presuppositions which allow us to ask it. What ways of conceptualizing time, space, culture, and politics allow us to formulate the possibility of a “Chinese Century” as a logical and imperative object of knowledge?
We
will undertake this interrogation of presuppositions by reading two different academic
literatures. The first is a critical version of world history, which challenges
the Eurocentric presumptions of conventional modern historiography by centering
its narrative standpoint elsewhere (either in Asia broadly or in China
specifically). The second is anthropological ethnography, which centers its narrative
standpoint in the located experience of specific individuals. Our task is to
bring these two critical standpoints – the historical and the ethnographic
– into a productive dialogue, which helps us understand the multifaceted cultural
processes through which people experience their lives as inhabiting a
space-time defined by “Chinese” qualities.
The class is organized to take up these two different literatures in turn. We will focus on history first. We are very fortunate to have a special guest helping with this. A generous donation by the Kang Brothers has allowed us to invite one of China’s leading intellectual historians, Wang Hui, to participate directly in our class by giving two lectures. The first half of our semester is organized to focus on his work, and the broader intellectual movement of which this work forms a central component. Afterwards, in the second half of the semester, we will turn from the grand concerns of world history to explore the forms of local knowledge at stake in anthropological ethnography, and think about how ordinary experience takes on its cultural qualities.
The spirit of this class is one of experimental collaboration. Its formal requirements are relatively minimal. My hope is that each of you will feel inspired to participate in a conversation that takes on its own life as a collective learning process.
Here are the formal requirements (the grading rubric is summarized below):
1. Attendance & Participation. We meet on Zoom every Wednesday evening from 7-10 PM (Central Standard Time). Your regular attendance is expected. You must do the required readings for each class before we meet and upload to our class Moodle site one discussion question about the readings. Uploading your question counts as “participation,” so if you are unable to meet on Zoom, please still upload your reading question to the class Moodle site. If you fail to upload a question and don’t show up to the Zoom class without arranging an excused absence in advance more than three times in the semester, I will get worried and check to make sure you’re OK. If you have five unexcused absences, I reserve the right to lower your grade by one letter point.
2. Leading a discussion. Graduate students (only) are expected to lead a short (20-30 minute) class discussion of one text at some point during the semester. We will allocate responsibility for this on the first day of class.
3. Writing
a paper. Everyone has to write a final paper. The paper will be graded in
two stages. First, a proposal developed in accordance with a prescribed formula
will be due on March 17 and count for 20% of your grade. The final paper is due
May 12, and counts for 40% of your grade. Undergraduate students are expected
to write a paper of 2,000-2,500 words and engage with at least two texts on the
syllabus. Graduate students are expected to write a paper of 5-8,000 words, and
engage with as many texts as necessary to say something about our meta-level
concerns with history and culture.
Grading Undergraduates Graduate Students
Attendance & Participation: 40% 20%
Leading Discussion: Not required 20%
Paper Proposal Exercise: 20% 20%
Final Paper: 40% 40%
Plagiarism
policy. By enrolling in this course
you agree to abide by the University’s honor code. The University of
Illinois prohibits all forms of academic dishonesty. Plagiarism, http://guides.library.illinois.edu/citingsources/plagarism, is a form of academic dishonesty and
grounds for failing in the class.
Espionage
policy. Students taking this course
have a reasonable expectation that our classroom discussions will be held in
confidence by all participants, and not shared with outside agencies. Any
student who (without permission) provides personal information shared within
this class to a government, party, or media organization will receive a failing
grade in the course.
Special Accommodations. Students with special needs or disabilities that may require some modification of seating, testing, or other class requirements should inform the instructor at the start of the course, so appropriate arrangements may be made.
- Teacher: Jeffrey Martin