Fall 2005

ANT 324L • Anthropology of Han Chinese Society

Course Description

This course takes an anthropological approach to the study of Han Chinese society and culture by introducing some of the core texts that have defined the field over the past 50 years or so. We begin by examining some basic social categories: sex roles, domestic relations, local communities, in-groups and out-groups, as well as large-scale political and cultural systems. From there, we go on to explore the main sites of social experience in Chinese society: marriage and the family, the socialization of children, economic and political life, religion, and social mobility. Readings focus on ethnographic descriptions of both "traditional" and contemporary aspects of family, social, and religious practice and ideology in Han Chinese communities on the Chinese mainland, as well as Taiwan and Hong Kong.

Texts

. Margery Wolf 1972 , Women and the Family in Rural Taiwan. Stanford U Press. ISBN #: 0804708495. Paper= $19.95 . All other readings on UT eReserves.

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