China Imagined: The Historical and Global Origins of the Chinese Nation

Catalog description

As China, with its China Dream, rises in power on the global stage, what China means to its inhabitants and outsiders has become an issue increasingly relevant to business, international relations, and cultural exchange, and a topic that draws intensive attention from historians and social scientists. This course brings together undergraduate and graduate students who are interested in shifting meanings embedded in the concept of China, either as part of their research agenda, or as a useful lens for comparative analysis. Focus will be on how China as an Empire/ a Nation was conceptualized by different people in different periods and in different contexts, and on the reality and representation of China as political, cultural, racial, and geographical entities. (ASIAN-SC, HIST-HAN)