Professor S Feuchtwang, A613

This course is optional for BA Anthropology and Law students. It is available to students on other degrees as permitted by the regulations.

Undergraduates taking this course should have completed an introductory course in anthropology unless granted exemption by the course teacher.

The ethnography of China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore; anthropological approaches to issues in Chinese kinship, religion, education and political-economy.

Chinese kinship: descent, lineages and ancestral cults, marriage, affinity and gender. Chinese popular religion: Daoism, Buddhism and Confucianism; local religion and the community; pilgrimage, spirit mediumship and healing. Literacy, education and nationalism in China; popular culture and the state. Anthropological studies of the Chinese economy.

Lectures AN231 weekly, Classes AN231.A weekly.

Students are expected to prepare discussion material for presentation in the classes and are required to write assessment essays.

Anthropology students taking this course will have an opportunity to submit a tutorial essay for this course to their personal tutors. For non-Anthropology students taking this course, a formative essay may be submitted to the course teacher.

E Ahern, Chinese Ritual and Politics; D Davis & S Harrell (Eds), Chinese Families in the Post-Mao Era; H Baker & S Feuchtwang (Eds), An Old State in New Settings;S Feuchtwang, The Imperial Metaphor: Popular Religion in China; P Steven Sangren, History and Magical Power in a Chinese Community; C Stafford, The Roads of Chinese Childhood; R Watson & P Ebrey (Eds), Marriage and Inequality in Chinese Society; J Watson & E Rawski (Eds), Death Ritual in Late Imperial and Modern China; H Gates, China’s Motor: A thousand years of petty capitalism. Detailed reading lists are provided at the beginning of the course.

A two-hour examination in the ST worth 80%. One assessed essay of 2,000-2,500 words (20%).