CHINESE CULTURE AND SOCIETY

The course is part of the integrative educational activities related to the Bachelor’s degree courses in “Hospitality Innovation and e-Tourism” and is aimed at students who want to deepen their knowledge of contemporary China from a historical-political perspective, looking at the socio-cultural and economic entanglements that shape the tourist sector. The aim is to promote those skills connected with the human and social sciences in a context of internationalization of job markets and cultural environments, increasing personal abilities of cultural mediation in the tourist sector.

At the end of the course the student will be able to critically understand the political and historical events, the economic changes, the cultural context and the major social phenomena of contemporary China through the lens of integrated sustainability; she/he should be able to critically discuss these topics in geopolitical terms.

1. Knowledge and comprehension
- to know the main historical-political events in China from socio-cultural, economic, and environmental perspectives
- to know some salient aspects of tourism in/with China
- to know some basic techniques of critical discourse analysis
2. Capacity to apply knowledge and comprehension
- to acquire and apply conceptual terminology related to political, and socio-cultural phenomena of contemporary China
- to recognize local-global interactions and the sharing of visions and practices also in the field of tourism
- to acquire methods applied to the study of cultural-economic phenomena such as tourism
3. Acquired skills
- to be able to critically discuss Chinese socio-cultural phenomena in a local-global relational context, taking into account geopolitical factors and postcolonial worldviews
- to develop a critical approach to the literature and the digital sources
- to reinterpret the concepts in a logic, coherent and synthetic style, using specific linguistic and semantic register and terminology, and conduct individual and group work.

There are no specific pre-requirements.

Content of the course will be the analysis of the politics, economy, culture and society of contemporary China, especially for what concerns the period from 1949 to the present. Historical-political discourses are reconstructed together with the cultural-economic discourses to point out the process of change within Chinese society both in terms of political-economic production and the shaping of socio-cultural imaginary. Disruptive phenomena such as the rapid urbanisation, the use/misuse of resources and consequent environmental problems, migration, labour market, scientific-technological advancement and the digital applied to the tourist sector, will also be analysed in geopolitical terms.

Robert E. Gamer; Stanley W. Toops (eds) (2017). "Understanding Contemporary China, Fifth Edition". Boulder, CO; London: Lynne Rienner Publishers.

Recommended reading: Samarani, Guido (2017). "La Cina contemporanea. Dalla fine dell'Impero a oggi". Nuova edizione aggiornata e ampliata. Torino: Einaudi, pp. 185-439.

All additional readings are available on moodle.

Students will be required to complete a set of diverse tasks and online assignments in Moodle. Response papers should be uploaded on Moodle and have a length of 300-500 words. These amount to 20% of the final grade.
The exam consists of writing a research paper of approximately 10 pages, based on one or more topics discussed in class, to be completed at home and submitted via Moodle to the teacher (80% of the final grade). The precise instructions for writing the essay will be explained in class and written in a document which will be uploaded on the course Moodle page.

Lectures, dialogues, experiential learning aimed at understanding the proposed themes. Group work.

English

written

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Poverty and inequalities" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development