Dwelling in Dilemma – Chinese Middle Class and Cities

Level: Undergraduate

Division: University-wide Programs

Department: University Lecture Program

Course Number: UGLB 3613

Course Format: Seminar

Location: NYC campus

Permission Required: No

Description:
Radical urbanization has now become one of the most concerned cultural-political terms in contemporary post-socialist China. It is time to study the politics of the emergence of the Chinese middle class as well as the disappearance of once well preserved urban spaces by critically investigating the intertwined processes of privatization, urbanization and globalization. In this context, this course will center on some of the crucial questions such as how to understand the violence of massive demolition of urban spaces in relation to the irony of the Chinese Property Rights Law, how to reflect on the plight of the Chinese middle class and their blind pursuit of homeownership dreams, and how to interpret the particular class condition and its political weakness. Therefore by introducing some of the seminal and primary texts on modern Chinese history, cinema and urban studies, this course will allow us to rethink the impact of Chinese hyper urbanism as well as the changing social, class and spatial distinctions in the era of global capitalism.

Restrictions:

Level

Open to Undergraduate students.