Hong Zhang

EA 257 From Communism to Consumerism: Pop Culture in China

Course Description
This course explores a fast-changing cultural scene in reform-era China. A wide range of popular cultural forms and newly-emerging consumption patterns (including films, popular music, avant-garde art, lifestyle magazines, TV commercials, fast food, disco and ballroom dancing, high-tech gadgets, theme parks, internet, and etc.) are analyzed and discussed in the context of China’s transition from a centrally controlled socialist state to a capitalist market economy and a consumer-oriented society. 

Required Textbooks

•  Harriet Evans and Stephanie Donald, eds. 1999. Picturing power in the People's Republic of China: Posters of the Cultural Revolution. Lanham, Md.; Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield. 
• Deborah Davis (ed.) 2000. The Consumer Revolution in Urban China. Cambridge University Press. 
• Claire Huot 2000. China’s New Cultural Scene. Duke University Press. 
• Liu Kang. 2004. Globalization and Cultural Trends in China. University of Hawai’i Press. 
• Richard Curt Kraus, 2004, The Party and Arty in China. Rowman & Littlefield 
• Supplementary materials online or at Colby  eReserve (Available later)

• Mao Zedong, "Talks at Yan'an Forum on Art and Literature" 
• Chinese Posters: The Chairman Smiles
• Communist Propaganda Posters (Stefan Landsberger)
• Virtual Museum of the Cultural Revolution

Useful Websites

• Chinese government website as a window to understand China
• Internet Guide for Chinese Studies ( Leiden University, Netherland) 
• Maps of China (University of Texas) 
• Library of Congress-Country Study: China
• Chronology of Chinese History

Media Links

• CCTV (English)
• Time Asia
• CNN Asia
• China Digital Times (Berkeley School of Journalism)