HISTORY OF MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY CHINA

The course will be aimed at analyzing the history of Chinese women in the modern and contemporary period, allowing the students to understand the evolution of Chinese society and culture from the perspective of gender.

Attending the lectures, participating in the planned learning activities, and through the study of the assigned readings the students are expected to achieve the following learning outcomes:
1. Knowledge and understanding
● To understand the changes in the women's condition in China through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
● To grasp the main conceptual tools used in gender studies and women's studies as it concerns Chinese culture and history.
2. Ability to apply knowledge and understanding
● To analyze the historical dynamics of modern and contemporary China from a gender perspective.
3. Ability to judge
● To recognize and critically evaluate the role played by gender ideology in historical processes related to modernity.
Learning ability
● To use critically the reference texts and the bibliography contained in them.
● To identify the main research and study resources related to the history of women in modern and contemporary culture.

A general knowledge of history of China in the Twentieth Century and the capability to read modern Chinese are required.

Women in the Chinese empire: historical perspectives.
The origin of the women issue: Western influences and nationalism in the early Twentieth-Century.
Women education and the emergence of the "new woman".
Women in the new urban society in the first decade of the Twentieth Century.
Women in Chinese rural society.
Women in Chinese politics: the experiences in the Nationalist Party and in the Communist Party.
Women in the war of resistance against Japan.
The women question in the People's Republic of China.

Bailey Paul.J., Women and Gender in Twentieth-Century China. Palgrave MacMillan, New York, 2012
Molony, Barbara - Choi, Hyaeweol - Theiss, Janet, Gender in Modern East Asia, Westview Press, 2016
The list of assigned readings will be communicated at the beginning of the course.

The achievement of the expected learning outcomes will be judged asking the student to submit a written essay to be completed in two hours. The short essay will concern one of the topics discussed in class and in the reading material listed in the bibliography.
The evaluation of the essay will take the following aspects into account:
- the student's knowledge and understanding of the reading material assigned on the subject;
- the student's ability to illustrate and reflect on the topic on the basis of the work done in class with the instructor;
- the clarity of the writing and argumentation.

The 30-hour course will include 14 hours of lectures by the instructor and 16 hours of seminar activities. The seminar activities will consist in the individual or group presentation and discussion of an essay or article or of a printed or audio-visual source assigned by the instructor during the previous lesson. Students will be invited to prepare a written summary of the assigned reading or a presentation of the source, to be read in class. The teacher will then guide the class discussion.

Italian

written

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Poverty and inequalities" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development