166-034 An/Other China:Theorising Everyday Life

Formerly available as 166-242/342. Students who have completed 166-242 or 166-342 are not eligible to enrol in this subject.

Usually 25 points of first-year politics. For cultural studies students 50 points of first-year arts including at least 25 points from a specific list of subject areas, see Prerequisites.

This subject is built around glimpses of, and insights into, the lives of ordinary Chinese people and the rules and rituals that govern their existence. Students will discuss the ways everyday life was governed under socialism and the ways that control is now breaking down with the emergence of a consumer culture, enabling a close scrutiny of the politics of everyday life. Picking up on themes as diverse and quirky as Mao badge fetishists, hoodlum slang, and the role of the tattoo, the subject examines the way a range of people not only live but resist dominant social discourse. This subject also employs an array of new critical thinking from Western social theorists to highlight these themes. Hence students gain a grounding not only in the politics of everyday life in China but also in Western theoretical engagements with the everyday. Students who complete the subject should be able to offer an insight into Asian values by taking up the issue of culturally different ways of making sense, and gain a different view of Asia by examining things at street level.