FF:CORE102 Jak Číňané vnímají svět: Čínsk - Course Information
CORE102 Jak Číňané vnímají svět: Čínské vize pro 21. století
Faculty of ArtsSpring 2025
- Extent and Intensity
- 2/0/0. 3 credit(s). Type of Completion: k (colloquium).
- Teacher(s)
- Mgr. et Mgr. Dušan Vávra, Ph.D. (lecturer)
- Guaranteed by
- Mgr. et Mgr. Dušan Vávra, Ph.D.
Department of Chinese Studies – Asia Studies Centre – Faculty of Arts
Contact Person: Mgr. et Mgr. Dušan Vávra, Ph.D.
Supplier department: Department of Chinese Studies – Asia Studies Centre – Faculty of Arts - Prerequisites
- TYP_STUDIA(BM) && FORMA(P) && !(PROGRAM(B-CS_) || OBOR(FBCSpV))
The course is open to students in the full-time Bachelor's and five-year Master's programmes, with the exception of the Chinese Studies programme.
The course requires English language skills - most of the course materials are in English. - Course Enrolment Limitations
- The course is offered to students of any study field.
The capacity limit for the course is 100 student(s).
Current registration and enrolment status: enrolled: 0/100, only registered: 0/100, only registered with preference (fields directly associated with the programme): 0/100 - Course objectives
- The course examines the ways in which the Chinese imagine the future of the world and China's place in it in the 20th and 21st centuries. It examines the ideas and narratives that have shaped and are shaping China in a variety of settings, from the official discourse of the Chinese Communist Party, to academic and journalistic sources, to literature, film, and popular culture in general. The course therefore aims to provide the audience with what is usually missing in public discussions of China - insight into how the Chinese themselves think and the ability to see the world through their eyes.
The course is interdisciplinary, combining approaches from cultural anthropology, political science, religious studies and other disciplines, discursive analysis and partly literary theory. By analyzing pop culture phenomena, it is part of a distinct trend within Chinese studies that includes phenomena previously often considered marginal in analyses of Chinese society and culture. - Learning outcomes
- Upon completion of the course, the student will be able to:
- understand and be able to recognize typical elements of Chinese discourses concerning Chinese identity and China's place in the world;
- identify elements of Chinese propaganda that are generally shared across Chinese society (and thus are not one-sided, top-down propaganda);
- understand the basic elements of traditional Chinese thought and their relevance to the present;
- understand how the Chinese construct "the West" (the idea of Western civilization) and why these constructions are central to how the Chinese themselves understand China;
- will have a basic understanding of contemporary Chinese society and culture; - Syllabus
- 1. Introduction to Chinese Thought: Confucianism and the Traditional Chinese Worldview
- 2. Introduction to Chinese thought: Chinese reform thought from the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century
- 3. Modernization as a (problematic) key concept of contemporary Chinese identity
- 4. The Communist Party and Chinese Marxism - a reinterpretation of Marxism in the environment of the successful project of state capitalism
- 5. Darwinist worldview in China: Cannibalism as a symbol of Chinese culture. A cross-section of the theme from the early 20th century to the present
- 6. China as a harmonious civilization. A cross-section of the topic from the early 20th century to the present
- 7. Martial arts in Chinese culture and society - the importance of this phenomenon for the construction of modern Chinese identity
- 8. Chinese medicine, qigong and religion in China as elements of the construction of modern Chinese identity
- 9. Chinese science fiction as a (surprising) medium for the formulation of Chinese ideas about themselves and criticism of the communist regime
- 10. Contemporary Chinese Political Thought - The New Left
- 11. Contemporary Chinese Political Thought - Conservatism
- 12. Contemporary Chinese Political Thought - Liberalism
- 13. Final summary and discussion - what are the prospects and limits of China's contemporary rise?
- Literature
- Teaching methods
- The basic teaching concept of this course is to introduce key modern and contemporary Chinese discourses across texts (and other materials) of various origins - from speeches by China's top leaders to pop culture. The main teaching method is lecture, accompanied by a wealth of textual, visual and other material.
Online discussions in IS will also be established for selected materials, which will be monitored by the instructor and commented on in the next class through discussion with students.
In addition, at the beginning of each lesson, students will watch a short video or read a short text related to the previous lesson, which will then be the subject of a quick quiz via the mobile app. The teacher will see the answers in real time and can immediately follow up by reflecting on these answers in a discussion with the students. These methods will continuously test students' attention and understanding of the material covered, while the online discussion and tests will allow students to test their own interpretation skills on real Chinese texts/videos in translation. Lectures will thus be enriched with elements of seminar work. - Assessment methods
- The course requires reading the texts or watching the videos prescribed for each lesson. Knowledge of these texts/videos and an understanding of their relevance to the course topics are essential for successful completion of the final test.
The course will conclude with a multiple-choice test testing key knowledge of the material covered. - Language of instruction
- Czech
- Enrolment Statistics (Spring 2025, recent)
- Permalink: https://is.muni.cz/course/phil/spring2025/CORE102