AN447 One Unit
China in Comparative Perspective
This information is for the 2025/26 session.
Course Convenor
Prof Hans Steinmuller
Availability
This course is compulsory on the MSc in China in Comparative Perspective. This course is available on the MA in Asian and International History (LSE and NUS), MA in Modern History, MSc in Anthropology and Development, MSc in International and Asian History, MSc in Political Economy of Europe in the World (LSE and Fudan) and MSc in Social Anthropology. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit. This course uses controlled access as part of the course selection process.
How to apply: All students on MSc China in Comparative Perspective (for whom the course is compulsory) will be given a place. Priority is then given to home department students, followed by those from other departments (based on their statements, and space permitting). Total student numbers on this course will be capped at 60.
Deadline for application: Please apply as soon as possible after the opening of course selection.
For queries contact: Anthro.Admin@lse.ac.uk
Course content
The main object of the course is to help students develop ways of putting the politics, economy and social life of China into a framework in which they can compare and juxtapose it with other major examples. Main topics include China's imperial bureaucracy, Chinese religion, the great divergence debate, as well as current issues such as urban life, the family, the rule of law, and contentious politics. Students will bring whatever theoretical approaches they have already learned and are continuing to learn in the disciplines they bring to the course. They will be expected to demonstrate and explain how they are using them as well as to listen to other approaches and disciplinary perspectives.
Teaching
15 hours of lectures and 10 hours of seminars in the Autumn Term.
15 hours of lectures and 10 hours of seminars in the Winter Term.
1 hours of seminars and 1.5 hours of lectures in the Spring Term.
This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Autumn and Winter Term.
Formative assessment
Essay (1500 words)
Essay (1500 words)
Formative coursework consists of participation in weekly seminars and the opportunity to submit one formative essay of up to 1500 words in each of the Autumn Term and Winter Term.
Students taking AN447 as an optional course will be informed of their formative submission deadline by email by the end of Week 4 of each term. These students will receive feedback on their formative essays from the course teacher.
Students on the MSc China in Comparative Perspective programme, for whom AN447 is a core course, will be informed of their formative submission deadline by their academic mentor early in term. These students will receive feedback on their formative essays from their academic mentor.
Indicative reading
- Fei Xiaotong 1992 [1948]. From the Soil, the Foundations of Chinese Society: A Translation of Fei Xiaotong’s Xiangtu Zhongguo, with an Introduction and Epilogue, transl. Gary Hamilton and Wang Zheng, Berkeley: University of California Press.
- Harrison, Henrietta 2001. China (Inventing the Nation). London: Arnold.
- Stockman, Norman 2001. Understanding Chinese Society. Cambridge: Polity.
- Spence, Jonathan D. 1991. The search for modern China. New York: Norton.
- Weber, Max 1951. The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism, transl. Hans H. Gerth, New York: The Free Press.
- Yan Yunxiang 2003. Private Life under Socialism. Love, Intimacy, and Family Change in a Chinese Village 1949-1999. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Assessment
Exam (100%), duration: 180 Minutes in the Spring exam period
Key facts
Department: Anthropology
Course Study Period: Autumn, Winter and Spring Term
Unit value: One unit
FHEQ Level: Level 7
CEFR Level: Null
Total students 2024/25: 27
Average class size 2024/25: 14
Controlled access 2024/25: YesCourse selection videos
Some departments have produced short videos to introduce their courses. Please refer to the course selection videos index page for further information.