Haocheng Lai

This course is available on the BA in Anthropology and Law, BA in Social Anthropology, BSc in International Relations and Chinese, BSc in Social Anthropology, Erasmus Reciprocal Programme of Study, Exchange Programme for Students from University of California, Berkeley, Exchange Programme for Students in Anthropology (Cape Town), Exchange Programme for Students in Anthropology (Fudan), Exchange Programme for Students in Anthropology (Melbourne) and Exchange Programme for Students in Anthropology (Tokyo). This course is freely available as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit. It does not require permission. This course is freely available to General Course students. It does not require permission.

This course provides an interdisciplinary introduction to global China, examining how China engages with the world economically, politically, culturally, and socially. Students will develop critical frameworks for analysing the social, cultural, economic, and political dimensions of China in the World, and the course will introduce key theoretical frameworks developed in Chinese studies, anthropology, political science, and geography, including debates about Chinese exceptionalism and alternative modernities. Core themes of the course include the social links between Chinese and non-Chinese actors (for instance in migration, diaspora, and education), evolving cultural understandings (soft power, media, cosmologies), and political economy (Chinese capitalism, FDI and development aid, legal regimes).

10 hours of lectures and 10 hours of classes in the Winter Term.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Winter Term.

Essay (1500 words).

Students will have the opportunity to submit one formative essay of up to 1500 words during the course.

Students will be informed of their formative submission deadline by email by the end of Week 3 of term.

Franceschini, Ivan, and Nicholas Loubere. 2022. Global China as Method. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Duara, Prasenjit 2009. The Global and the Regional in China’s Nation-formation. London: Routledge

Osterhammel, Jürgen. 2014. The Transformation of the World: A Global History of the Nineteenth Century. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Lovell, Julia 2019. Maoism: A Global History. London: Bodley Head.

Lee, Ching Kwan. 2018. The Specter of Global China: Politics, Labor, and Foreign Investment in Africa. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Lee, Ching Kwan. 2022. ‘Global China at 20: Why, How and So What?’ The China Quarterly 250:313–31. doi:10.1017/S0305741022000686.

Chen, Kuan-Hsing. Asia as Method. Toward Deimperialization. Durham: Duke University Place, 2010.

Exam (100%), duration: 120 Minutes in the Spring exam period.