MA course ‘Chinese Culture and Society’*

This course is taught as a mandatory course to students in the 1st and 2nd term of the MA programme ‘MA in Business, Language, and Culture (Chinese)’. Students are trained to use theories and methods that are relevant for understanding and analyzing Chinese culture and society. Focusing on China’s particular historical and socio-cultural situation, the relevancy of existing theories on the development of China’s society and on the cultural interaction between China and the West is scrutinized. The course introduces theories from the larger field of Cultural Studies such as Postcolonialism (here we deal with orientalist and occidentalist discourses), as well as Nationalism and Cultural Pluralism. Against this theoretical backdrop, we take a closer look at social phenomena such as the Chinese values debate, New Confucianism, as well as Chinese Civil Society. Critical discourse analysis with its focus on the close nexus of knowledge and power is a main methodological tool in the course. Relevant Chinese texts complement English-language theoretical readings to train the application of discourse theory in case studies. For instance, we look at authors who discuss the question of universal and Chinese values in a very controversial way, such as ‘Universal values and the China Model’ by Cong and Zhang (2012) who take an extremely liberal stance, while another Chinese text ‘The China Model of the Chinese Government’ (2013) provides the hardliner perspective. Exercises in retrieval of further information about China’s culture and society are an integrated part of the teaching.

Teaching takes the form of lectures, discussions and exercises. The language used in teaching is English for the theoretical part and Chinese for the discussion of the Chinese texts (case studies, newspaper articles etc.). These readings and discussions require students’ Chinese language proficiency at an advanced level. Considerable active participation is expected from students regarding preparation, presentation and discussion of the Chinese language readings. Students are encouraged to create study groups in this discipline.

*This course was part of the study programme 'BA and MA in Business, Language, and Culture (Chinese)' offered at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU) between 2007 and 2021. The programme ended in 2021.