In this course we take “Contemporary” as beginning around the turn of the 21st century and “China” as a transnational formation linking multiple territories and migrant communities.
We will read and discuss a selection of influential works in English on the transformations of Chinese political economy, technology, culture, and media, emphasizing on their interconnections. The materials are arranged in ways to help you synthesize findings from separate fields such as “China studies,” “media & cultural studies,” and “critical technology & data studies” generatively. Topics include:
- Education / mobility
- Growth / corruption
- Labor / migration
- Gender / reproduction
- Tech / AI arms race
Chinese platform & media ecologies
We will form groups around research topics of your choice, work together to develop topical bibliographies, and conduct original research using primary documents. You will work on individual topics as part of a research team.
