CN4403 Youth and Education in Republican China

Academic year

2024 to 2025 Semester 2

Further information on which modules are specific to your programme.

Key module information

SCOTCAT credits

15

The Scottish Credit Accumulation and Transfer (SCOTCAT) system allows credits gained in Scotland to be transferred between institutions. The number of credits associated with a module gives an indication of the amount of learning effort required by the learner. European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) credits are half the value of SCOTCAT credits.

SCQF level

SCQF level 10

The Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF) provides an indication of the complexity of award qualifications and associated learning and operates on an ascending numeric scale from Levels 1-12 with SCQF Level 10 equating to a Scottish undergraduate Honours degree.

Availability restrictions

Restricted to students on Chinese Studies joint honours programmes - max 35 students

Planned timetable

TBC

This information is given as indicative. Timetable may change at short notice depending on room availability.

Module coordinator

Dr K Cai

This information is given as indicative. Staff involved in a module may change at short notice depending on availability and circumstances.

Module Staff

Dr Keru Cai

This information is given as indicative. Staff involved in a module may change at short notice depending on availability and circumstances.

Module description

This module explores how Republican Chinese writers, artists, and intellectuals pondered the problem of an old, allegedly moribund traditional culture which they hoped to revitalize and make young again: how modern China could, in many reformers’ estimation, only come to fruition if its cultural production focused upon educating youth and saving future generations from the problems plaguing the nation. We will investigate how essays, fiction, drama, film, and visual culture evince their pedagogical ambitions, hoping to train young people into enlightened, modernised citizens of a new stronger polity. Key topics include the role of Westernised education, the changing role of women in pedagogical institutions, the discrepancies between rural and urban youth, the influence of evolutionary and sexological discourses, and intertextual engagement with both foreign and premodern Chinese aesthetic forms.

Relationship to other modules

Pre-requisites

STUDENTS MUST HAVE READING KNOWLEDGE OF CHINESE

Assessment pattern

Coursework - 100%

Re-assessment

Coursework - 100%

Learning and teaching methods and delivery

Weekly contact

1.5 contact hours each week

Scheduled learning hours

17

The number of compulsory student:staff contact hours over the period of the module.

Guided independent study hours

132

The number of hours that students are expected to invest in independent study over the period of the module.

Intended learning outcomes

  • Demonstrate knowledge about the debates and discourses on youth and education from the end of the Qing dynasty to the beginning of the Maoist period.
  • Understand the role of cultural production in aiming to train and educate new generations of Chinese citizens.
  • Read key Republican era works of fiction, nonfiction, drama, film, and visual art whilst analysing their appropriations from foreign and premodern Chinese sources.
  • Identify and problematise binaries of male/female, rural/urban, Chinese/Western, rich/poor in Republican era works describing youth and education.