HI432 In-Class

#408 Rising Nationalism in the 1990s and 2000s

4/19/2018

Today will be our the last session of or “normal” course content before we shift to working on the research project. As a result, we will dedicate most of the period to open discussion. I have prepared a video to start us off and would like to start by looking at Tang Jie as an individual, but beyond that I hope you will feel free to redirect the discussion in whatever way makes sense to you.

Tang Jie's 6-minute video from 2008:

Tang Jie

How is the Tang Jie that appears in Osnos’ profile similar or different from what you might imagine the person to be like who created the video we have seen together?
Does Tang Jie seem like the kind of person who you might have a close friendship with either if you had gotten to know him in China or if he were a student here at Hotchkiss? Why or why not?
What do you think motivated him to produce the video?

Who are the “angry youth” (fenqing 愤青)?

What values do they see themselves holding? What values do others see them as holding?
How would you evaluate their actions in protesting Western media and other companies?

Analyze some of the comparisons made in the piece:

China : Tibet :: America : Cherokee
America : Kent State shootings :: China : “June 4th”
America, China, and India: “You eat bread, you drink coffee. All of these are not brought by democracy. Indian guys have democracy, and some African countries have democracy, but they can’t feed their own people. Chinese people have begun to think, One part is the good life, another is democracy. If democracy can really give you the good life, that’s good. But, without democracy, if we can still have the good life why should we choose democracy?” (Liu Yang quoted in Osnos).

Further questions:

How were the 1989 demonstrations like or unlike those in 1999, 2008? One point to consider is the transition from democracy to nationalism as key words of the movement.
Examine the tension between “reform and opening” on one side and the growing sense of national pride on the other. Are these two impulses ultimately compatible? Why or why not?
Reflect—perhaps one last time—on the “century of humiliation” (bainian guochi 百年国耻) and the way it informs nationalist sentiment in contemporary China.

0 Comments

#310 "Learn from Comrade Lei Feng!"

3/9/2018

0 Comments

Personal reflection:

Start out by thinking about connections between what you read and your own experiences with propaganda. Were you ever exposed to propaganda growing up?

Discussion questions:

Describe the visual, audio, and textual aesthetics of the Lei Feng campaign that we examined for homework.
What are some of the values that “studying Lei Feng” might impart on young Chinese?
Where have we seen these values mentioned in our course so far?
What effects do you think this propaganda campaign actually had during the Mao years? What about in more recent years?
Andrew Jacobs, writing for The New York Times, reports that in 2012, efforts by the party to feature Lei were “met by snickers.” Assuming that the cynicism was indeed more widespread than during the Mao period, what factors might account for the change?

Comparison:

Having reflected on the “Learn from Comrade Lei Feng!” campaign, identify another propaganda (or advertising) campaign from another context. Compare and contrast the aesthetics, messaging, and likely impact of the two campaigns.

0 Comments

#104 Opium War and Patriotic Education

1/11/2018

0 Comments

Two young visitors to the Opium War Museum in Dongguan, Guangdong. Source: City Weekend.

Where can we find public history?

Locate as many examples of public history as you can find in the chapter. Pause very briefly for each to identify why it is an example of public history. For example, on page 347, the Central China Television documentary, "Road to Revival" (Fuxing zhi lu 复兴之路). It would count as public history because it presents the Opium War (and other historical episodes) to the Chinese public through the medium of television.

Select one of these episodes to zoom in on for further investigation. Feel free to do a quick search online to supplement the information available in Lovell, though do try to focus on the questions below:

Who created it? Was it an individual, group, or institution?
Who was the intended audience? Which group or groups did the author intend to engage? What assumptions can you make about the intended audience? How might the intended audience have been similar to—or different from—you?
What might have been behind the purpose of creating it? What is its intended effect? Is the author’s aim to entertain, to inform, to persuade, to critique, to complain, to explain, to describe, and/or to reflect?
What key messages are being conveyed? How does the information presented compare to arguments or evidence presented as part of our last two class sessions?
What is the tone? Which adjectives come to mind as you grapple with it?

Discussion:

Did anything in the chapter confuse or surprise you?

From Lovell’s work, we have identified a range of different ways the Chinese public has encountered the history of the Opium War. To what extent does it make sense to talk about school curriculum in the same discussion as museums—and indeed video games?

What are some of the ways that the history of the Opium War(s) in China was discussed in the years after 1989? What might be some reasons for this change?

How did the patriotic education initiative change the way the Opium War was understood, particularly by young Chinese?

Based on what you could gather from the conclusion, how is history education different from history education in the United States? Do you see them different in degree or in kind? What about similarities?

For what purpose do you believe history should be taught?

Homework: Assignment #105

0 Comments

#408 Rising Nationalism in the 1990s and 2000s

#310 "Learn from Comrade Lei Feng!"

#104 Opium War and Patriotic Education

Archives

Categories