Modern Chinese History through Film

Catalog description

This course presents Chinese modern History through the lens of feature films and documentaries. Through a chronological approach, it focuses on the period from the Opium Wars to the present. It discusses political struggles, economic shifts, the encounter with Western Imperialism, the birth of Communist China, the shift to a market economy; it focuses on issues of war, gender, society, rural versus urban, and the environment. Acquire a non-Western Historical perspective; understand diversity in the World; be conversant in modern Chinese History; connect those notions to the historical development of the West; understand film theory and practice.