HOME Syllabus contents: Course Description Grading Policy Required Readings Class Films	ANTH 469A/SISEA 490B, Spring 2006 Ethnograpies of Rural-Urban Encounter in China
	Syllabus Instructor: Sasha Welland [website] Office: Denny Hall 430 Office Hours: Th 2:00-3:30 pm or by appt. Email: swelland@u.washington.edu Class Meeting Times and Location: T&Th 11:30-1:20 / Denny Hall 311 Class Email: anth469a_sp06@u.washington.edu Class EPost Discussion Board
	Course Description Urban questions are rural questions—and vice versa. As cities around the world expand, social research today often embroils anthropologists in encounters between city and countryside. China serves as a particularly intense location to examine shifting conceptualizations of rural and urban social space. From the urban-rural movement of sent-down youth during the Cultural Revolution to the rural-urban migration of the floating population under market reform, Chinese officials and citizens have long negotiated social meanings associated with rural and urban experience. This course will explore the socio-cultural, political, economic, and environmental stakes involved in these encounters, while addressing the question of ethnographic representation in relation to the village, the city, and the social spaces that lie between. The course will also encourage students to consider popular visual representations of rural/urban space through films screened in class and an international conference to be held at UW (April 28-30, 2006), “Cinema at the City’s Edge: Film and Urban Space in East Asia.” The growth of cities around the world and in China poses a challenge to anthropologists, whose discipline originated in the study of small groups and villages. As ethnographers attempt to understand and analyze urban life, has focus shifted away from rural experience? When and how are city or country used to represent China as a culture? How have the city and the country (or urban and rural space) been defined and categorized? How do we understand the relation of cities and countries to the world economic system? While the course focuses on ethnographies of China in particular, it is designed to push us to make connections with debates about rural/urban issues in other parts of the world. <-- RETURN TO TOP Grading Policy Each student’s performance will be evaluated as follows: Intersections Assignment: 10% Class Facilitation: 10% Response Paper #1: 20% Response Paper #2: 20% Final Paper: 30% Participation: 10%  <-- RETURN TO TOP Required Readings COURSE READER: Available at Rams Copy Center, 4144 University Way (Articles in the reader are indicated with an R in the syllabus.) BOOKS: Available at The University Bookstore (and on reserve at Odegaard) Erik Mueggler, The Age of Wild Ghosts: Memory, Violence, and Place in Southwest China Li Zhang, Strangers in the City: Reconfigurations of Space, Power, and Social Networks within China’s Floating Population Tamara Jacka, Rural Women in Urban China: Gender, Migration, and Social Change   SALE BOOK: Liu Xin, In One’s Own Shadow: An Ethnographic Account of the Condition of Post-Reform Rural China is on special sale, until April 27, through the University of California Press website for $7.95 (58% savings from the list price).  <-- RETURN TO TOP Class Films The following films are on reserve at the Odegaard Media Center: Chen Kaige. 1984. Yellow Earth 黄土地. (90 min.) Jia Zhangke. 2004. The World 世界. (96 min.) Wu Wenguang. 2001. Dance with Farm Workers 和民工跳舞. (57 min.)
BACK TO TOP Last Updated: 03/31/06	Contact the instructor at: swelland@u.washington.edu