The assignments are meant to be exercises for you to think ethically. Length-wise, about 2500 words, double space, 4 pages, with a meaningful title. In the 2nd paper, you discuss no less than five texts, fictional, philosophical, biographical to develop a coherence by nuanced reading and textual analysis. This is also the draft for your final in-class oral presentation; unless you deal with something not assigned in this class, no need for summary. The due dates: March, 3rd, and April 18.
First paper: Self Identity
History is but his story. Write a story bout your individuation and focus on the formation of your personal identity. This is an invitation for you to write a narrative (fictional) account about how you have become who you are today, in similar ways as two Chinese literary characters.
Second paper: Social Identity
To a degree, personal identity is shaped by people’s economic conditions, more than gender, race or nationality. To the extend that your morals are predicated on or determined by matters of money and wealth, share your sense of social justice and your thought on equality by way of discussing three Chinese political novels.
Third paper: Political Identity and Identity Politics
Every society has both socialist and capitalist elements in its structure. Explain your political views on the freedom to get ahead (liberalism) and the need for collective struggle (socialism). Elaborate your point by analyzing four Chinese texts showing human dignity and freedom as the costs of social democracy.
Fourth paper: National, International and Transnational Identity
In today’s post-American and post-modern world, how do you understand the issue of modernity? Present your insights by reference to five texts in which China is a hybrid of foreign subjugation, Western colonization, globalization, and modernization, trans-nationalizing across many narratives and temporalities.
Other topics include but are not limited to the following
- Oriental Identity and Eurocentric World History. Chinese historian and scholar Wang Hui argues that “the idea of Asia is not an Asian invention but a European one”. But the idea was actually a joint invention by such Asians such as Fukuzawa Yukichi, who proposed the “Datsu-A Nyu-O (脱亚入欧) for Japan to depart from Asia and join the Europeans.” In recent decades, many scholars have begun arguing for “restoring the times of history to China” and “China-centered history of China” to resist Hegelian Eurocentric biases against non-Western cultures. How is this Oriental self-identity being negotiated in no fewer than five texts as Chinese self-reinventions and self-representations:
- Family by Ba Jin
- Xiaoxiao, the Girl from Hunan by Shen Congwen;
- A Madman’s Diary, The True Story of Ah Q by Lu Xun;
- Black Li and White Li by Lao She;
- Love Must not be Forgotten by Zhang Jie;
- To Live by Yu Hua and Zhang Yimou
- Farewell My Concubine by Chen Kaige
- Ermo dir by Zhou Xiaowen
- Chinese Box, dir by Wayne Wang
- Class Struggle and Social Equality. Hannah Arendt argues that “the social question began to play a revolutionary role only when, in the modern age and not before, men began to doubt that poverty is inherent in the human condition”. Identify instances in no fewer than five works in which the Chinese entered into this “modern age” and began to think as Marx who “…spoke of the social question in political terms and interpreted the predicament of poverty in categories of oppression and exploitation”. Is our personal identity determined by our socioeconomic conditions and can inequality be eradicated when poverty is eliminated?
- On New Democracy by Mao Zedong
- The Great Union of the Popular Masses by Mao Zedong;
- When I Was in Hsia Village by Ding Ling;
- Black Li and White Li by Lao She;
- Red Detachment of Women by Xie Jin;
- The White Hired Girl by Wang Bing
- Happy Times, dir Zhang Yimou
- Blind Shaft, dir Zhou Xiaowen
- Socialism or Capitalism. Zynmunt Bauman points out that “Since socialism and capitalism were children conceived in the cradle of the great project of modernity, they were both doomed to follow suit in this respect.” (p.69) In the West, the project of modernity was debated most vehemently between Keynes calling for a central planning economy and Hayek advocating liberal market economy. This ideological rift also underscores the bloody conflict between the Communists and Nationalists in China. To Alain Badiou, revolution was an inevitable step toward freedom and equality, as is depicted in Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables. He argues, “if we were forced to make a choice between the barbarians of civilization and the civilized men of barbarism, we should choose the barbarians”. Discuss no fewer than five works that help you articulate your positionality, as Bauman made clear his take on this issue: “Like the phoenix, socialism is reborn from every pile of ashes left day in, day out, by burned-out human dreams and charred hopes. It will keep on being resurrected as long as the dreams are burnt and the hopes are charred, as long as human life remains short of the dignity it deserves and the nobility it would be able, given a chance, to muster. And if it were the case, I hope I’d die a socialist.”
- Black Li and White Li, by Lao She
- Spring Silkworms and Family Shop of Mr. Lin by Mao Dun
- Red Detachment of Women by Xie Jin;
- The White Hired Girl by Wang Bing
- Fanshen by William Hinton;
- Old Man Xing and His Dog, by Zhang Xianliang
- Breaking with Old Ideas dir. Li Wenhua,
- Lei Feng dir. Dong Zhaoqi;
- Hibiscus Town by Gu Hua and dir. Xie Jin
- Blue Kite by Tian Zhuangzhuang;
- Corner Forsaken by Love, Zhang Xian
- Ermo, dir. Zhou Xiaowen
- Happy Times, dir. Zhang Yimou;
- Lost in Beijing, dir Li Yu;
- Farewell My Concubine by Chen Kaige;
- The Execution of Mayor Yin by Chen Ruoxi;
- In Search of Lin Zhao’s Soul by Hu Jie;
- Remembering Xiao Shan by Ba Jin
- Mass-Mindedness and Collective Psychology. Humanity does not change much despite social progress. How do you understand violence, bloodshed, and destruction that came to the fore in the course of social revolution? While Hegel, Marx and Mao understood modern history in terms of freedom and democracy against totalitarianism, Rene Girard and Carl Jung studied political persecutions as rituals of scapegoating to satisfy the needs of the collective unconscious, driven by human mimetic desires. What do you think, linear social progress or unchanging human nature?
- True Story of Ah Q by Lu Xun;
- White Haired Girl, dir. Shui Hua and Wang Bin
- Red Brigade of Women, dir. Xie Jin
- The Execution of Mayor Yin by Chen Ruoxi
- Blue Kite, dir. Tian Zhuangzhuang
- Coming Home, dir. Zhang Yimou
- Half of Man Is Woman, by Zhang Xianliang
- The Scar, by Lu Xinhua
- Farewell My Concubine, dir. Chen Kaige
- Feminism and Genger Identity. In the twentieth-century, “the Chinese” and “the human” are constantly being redefined by changes in cultural values. This includes femininity as a cultural construct changing constantly in the course of social progress through phases of communism and capitalism. Have the social conditions for Chinese women been improved for Chinese women, waking them up to the female self-consciousness as autonomous and free agents of history?
- Xiaoxiao, by Shen Congwen
- The New Woman, dir. Cai Chusheng
- White Haired Girl, dir. Wang Bin and Shui Hua
- Red Brigade of Women, dir. Xie Jin
- When I Was in Hsia Village, Ding Ling
- Blue Kite, dir. Tian Zhuangzhuang
- In Search of Lin Zhao’s Soul, by
- Lost in Beijing, dir. Li Yu
- Ermo, dir. Zhou Xiaowen
- Chinese Box, dir. Wayne Wang