Rites of Power in Modern China

Catalog description

Confucius and Mao shared at least one characteristic: a conviction that ritual is a critical part of exercising power. This course investigates the meaning of ritual and its importance in the formation of Chinese communities in the modern era, whether households, villages, empires, communes, regions, or nation-states. Topics include family and gender roles, imperial ceremonies, religious rites, revolutionary politics, cults of personality, grassroots movements, and popular protests. The class will collaboratively explore how political activists embraced new media (photographs, mass performance, music, film, video) and techniques (boycotts, mobilization, marches, purges) that merged ritual power with material action.