Unit information: Urban China: Old and New Patterns of Development in 2010/11

Unit name	Urban China: Old and New Patterns of Development
Unit code	SPAIM0004
Credit points	20
Level of study	M/7
Teaching block(s)	Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24)
Unit director	Dr. Marinelli
Open unit status	Not open
Pre-requisites	None
Co-requisites	None
School/department	School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies
Faculty	Faculty of Social Sciences and Law

Description including Unit Aims

This unit examines major issues in urban China through reading and discussion of representative scholarly works. The unit focuses on the transformation of Chinese cities, with particular emphasis on the capital, Beijing, but investigating also Shanghai and Tianjin. Using a multidisciplinary approach and a comparative perspective the unit explores the distinctive faces of these cities, their history, society, culture, politics and economics, and their evolving position in national, regional and global frameworks. The unit will mainly explore Beijing, Tianjin and Shanghai both in temporal and spatial terms, emphasizing the key forces affecting urban development since 1900, but paying close attention to the legacy of the past in shaping contemporary urbanization, economic and financial linkages, architecture and space, wealth and power, gendered relations. The unit will examine how political power has been constructed, expressed, maintained and reproduced in urban China, and will also analyse how citizenship is defined, investigating the relation between insiders (i.e. Beijing citizens), outsiders (i.e. migrants) and foreigners.

Aims:

This unit aims to provide a case study of a specific subject area that functions as a well defined and coherent topic but also permits students to engage with issues and questions that have broad applications in the study of contemporary China: urbanisation, colonialism and post-colonialism, modern Chinese history, and issues related to the types of sources used by contemporary historians and social scientists. Students will be encouraged to explore a range of primary material (novels, reports, films, archival documents, academic journals).

Intended Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of the unit students will have:

• gained a secure understanding of many of the major themes in the modern history of Beijing, Tianjin and Shanghai, as well as in the history of modern China and Chinese urbanisation and urban culture in Tianjin, Shanghai.

• developed and practised a range of important research-related skills: the ability to locate problems and frame questions; the identification and testing of hypotheses; the presentation of arguments that are clear, structured and substantiated; the ability to build up bibliographies; the mobilisation of various types of primary evidence, and an understanding of the distinctive qualities of different sources;

• developed their ability to locate their arguments within current scholarly debates;

• developed their awareness of different disciplinary approaches.

Teaching Information

Lectures, seminars, presentation, small and large group activities.

Assessment Information

1 x 3,500-4,000 word assignment reflecting the learning outcomes listed above.

Reading and References

• Beguin, Gilles and Morel, Dominique (1997) The Forbidden City: Center of Imperial China New York: H.N. Abrams Publishers.

• Broudehoux, Anne-Marie (2004) The Making and Selling of Post-Mao Beijing London, New York: Routledge.

• Dutton, Michael Streetlife China (1998) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

• Meyer, Jeffrey F. (1991)The Dragons of Tiananmen Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press.

• Naquin, Susan (2000) Peking: Temples and City Life, 1400-1900 Berkeley: University of California Press.

• Strand, David (1989) Rickshaw Beijing Berkeley: University of California Press.

• Tang, Wenfang, (2000) Chinese Urban life Under Reform: The Changing Social Contract Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.