Monday - Thursday, 12:00-2:10 pm, Thomson 125

Note: Some screenings may run longer than the class period. I will provide advance notice if this will occur.

This course examines forms of representation in China by looking at films, documentary, literature, photography, and propaganda. We will consider the process and ethics of representation as well as the reception of different forms of representation. We focus primarily on the mainland People's Republic of China. With representation as a unifying theme, we will examine several topics important to the development of the modern Chinese nation.

The first part of this course explores the narrating, retelling and reinterpreting of the history of the People's Republic of China. We will investigate how subject positions of peasant, worker, landlord, soldier, woman, and minority nationality group were constructed and inhabited in the early years of the socialist nation. We will also explore how filmmakers' personal stories and life histories influenced their rendition of historical events, and how the state censorship mechanisms reacted to these renditions.

The second part of the course will look more specifically at the questions of truth and reality, ethics, and representation and power through an examination of the documentary movement and experiments with self-representation. We will return to the relationship of ethnic minorities to Han Chinese and examine power dynamics in self-representation efforts.

As we analyze representation in China, we will also think critically about the scholarship of China and Chinese media by Western academics and news media using an Orientalist framework. This will help us understand both how China is examined as an object of inquiry and how ethnic groups within China are made part of the Chinese nation.