1 Winter 2010 ARTH/EAST 356 Modern & Contemporary Chinese Art M & W 12.35am-1.55pm Arts W-215 Instructor: Hajime Nakatani Office Address: 3434 McTavish, #401 Email: hajime.nakatani@mcgill.ca Office Hours: Tu 1.30-4pm MCGILL UNIVERSITY VALUES ACADEMIC INTEGRITY. THEREFORE ALL STUDENTS MUST UNDERSTAND THE MEANING AND CONSEQUENCE OF CHEATING, PLAGIARISM AND OTHER ACADEMIC OFFENCES UNDER THE CODE OF STUDENT CONDUCT AND DISCIPLINARY PROCEDURES (See www.mcgill.ca/integrity for more information). ACCORDING TO SENATE REGULATIONS, INSTRUCTORS ARE NOT PERMITTED TO MAKE SPECIAL ARRANGEMENTS FOR FINAL EXAMS. PLEASE CONSULT THE CALENDAR, SECTION 4.7.2.1, GENERAL UNIVERSITY INFORMATION AND REGULATIONS AT WWW.MCGILL.CA. Course Descrition Examination of modern Chinese art and visual culture from the 1920s to the present. Emphasis will be placed on the formation of the artistic avant-garde in the 20th century and its relation to socialist and post-socialist mass culture. Requirements: The course will consist of lectures and occasional class discussions. Requirements are: 1. Attendance and participation 2. Mid-term exam: 1) In-class exam consisting of three slide comparisons 2) Take-home essay (3-4 pages). List of essay topics will be handed out in class. 3. Final exam: 1) In-class exam consisting of three slide comparisons 2) Take-home essay (5-6 pages). List of essay topics will be handed out in class. Grade Determination: Mid-term in-class: 20% Mid-term short take-home essay: 20% Final in-class: 30% Final take-home essay: 30% Readings Course packs are available for purchase at the Campus Bookstore. Multiple copies of readings not in course pack are available at the library reserve.
2 Course Schedule Week 1-1 (Jan 4) Week 1-2 (Jan 6) Introduction Screening: China A Century of Revolution, Part 1 China in Revolution Screening: China: A Century of Revolution, Part 2: The Mao Years Part I. Revolutionary Dreams and Fantasies Week 2-2 (Jan 11) The Avant-Garde: Revolutionary Logic in Art and Politics Calinescu, Matei. Five Faces of Modernity: Modernism, Avant-Garde, Decadence, Kitsch, Postmodernism. Durham: Duke University Press, 1987: 95-132. Week 2-2 (Jan 13) Art for/by the People (who s the real avant-garde?) McDougall, Bonnie S. Mao Zedong's "Talks at the Yan'an Conference on Literature and Art". Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1980: 57-86. Groys, Boris. The Total Art of Stalinism: Avant-Garde, Aesthetic Dictatorship, and Beyond. Translated by Charles Rougle. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992: 3-13. Week 3-1 (Jan 18) Masses, Heroes, and the Revolutionary Narrative Apter, David E., and Tony Saich. Revolutionary Discourse in Mao's Republic. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994: 1-30. Croll, Elizabeth J. "Imagining Heaven: Collective and Gendered Dreams in China." Anthropology Today 7, no. 4 (1991): 7-12. Week 3-2 (Jan 20) The Revolutionary Body Elvin, Mark. "Tales of Shen and Xin: Body-Person and Heart-Mind in China during the Last 150 Years." In Zone 4: Fragments for a History of the Human Body, edited by Michel Feher, Ramona Naddaff and Nadia Tazi. New York: Zone, 1993: 267-349. Week 4-1 (Jan 25) Cult of Chairman Mao Apter, David E., and Tony Saich. Revolutionary Discourse in Mao's Republic. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994: 242-60. Kraus, Richard C. Brushes with Power: Modern Politics and the Chinese Art of Calligraphy. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991: 65-74, 96-108 Week 4-2 (Jan 27) Model Opera 1: White-Haired Girl
3 The People's Comic Book: Red Women's Detachment, Hot on the Trail, and Other Chinese Comics. New York: Anchor Press, 1973: 14-48. Week 5-1 (Feb 1) The Model Opera 2: The Total Art of Maoism Buck-Morss, Susan. Dreamworld and Catastrophe: The Passing of Mass Utopia in East and West. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2000: 134-161. Kracauer, Siegfried. The Mass Ornament In The Mass Ornament: Weimar Essays. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995: 74-86. Week 5-2 (Feb 3) North Korea Portal, Jane. Art under control in North Korea. London : Reaktion, 2005: chapter 4. Week 6-1 (Feb 8) Spectacle, Mass Mobilization, and Mass Culture in the 20 th Century Debord, Guy. The Society of the Spectacle. New York: Zone Books, 1994. (Read the following paragraphs: 1-16, 18, 21, 24, 28-30, 60-70) Arendt, Hannah. The Origins of Totalitarianism. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1979: 341-388 Week 6-2 (Feb 10) Week 7-1 (Feb 15) Mid-term Prep Midterm Part II. The Heroic and the Quotidian in Post-Revolutionary Visual Culture Week 7-2 (Feb 17) PBS Documentary: The Gate of Heavenly Peace Week 8 Study Break No Class Week 9-1 (Mar 1) Tiananmen Square Apter, David E., and Tony Saich. Revolutionary Discourse in Mao's Republic. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994: 294-331. (Not in Course Pack) Wu, Hung. "Tiananmen Square: A Political History of Monuments." Representations 35 (1991): 84-117. Week 9-2 (Mar 3) Wound Art to Artistic Avant-Garde 1999: 12-26. (Not in Course Pack) Week 10-1 (Mar 8) Mao Cult Redux
4 Dai, Jinhua Redemption and Consumption: Depicting Culture in the 1990s. In Jing Wang and Tani E. Barlow, eds. Cinema and Desire: Feminist Marxism and Cultural Politics in the Work of Dai Jinghua. London: Verso, 2002: 172-88. (Not in Course Pack) Dal Lago, Francesca. "Personal Mao: Reshaping an Icon in Contemporary Chinese Art." Art Journal 58, no. 2 (1999): 46-59. 1999: 43-53, 83-87. Week 10-2 (Mar 10) The Mao Within Anagnost, Ann. National Past-Times: Narrative, Representation, and Power in Modern China, Body, Commodity, Text. Durham: Duke University Press, 1997: 161-75. 1999: 88-107. Week 11-1 (Mar 15) Revolutionary Pop and Kitsch Calinescu, Matei. Five Faces of Modernity: Modernism, Avant-Garde, Decadence, Kitsch, Postmodernism. Durham: Duke University Press, 1987: 225-62. Greenberg, Clement. 1986. "Avant-Grade and Kitsch." In The Collected Essays and Criticism, Volume 1: Perceptions and Judgments, 1939-1944, edited by J. O'Brian. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Week 11-2 (Mar 17) Writing 1: The Oppressive Script Chow, Ray. Male Narcissism and National Culture: Subjectivity in Chen Kaige s King of the Children. In Primitive Passions: Visuality, Sexuality, Ethnography, and Contemporary Chinese Cinema. NY: Columbia University Press, 1995: 108-130. 1999: 36-42. Week 12-1 (Mar 22) Writing 2: Xu Bing Cayley, John. "Writing (Under-)Sky: On Xu Bing's Tianshu." In A Book of the Book: Some Works and Projections about the Book and Writing, edited by Jerome Rothenberg and Steven Clay. New York: Granary Books, 2000. Köppel-Yang, Martina. Semiotic Warfare: The Chinese Avant-Garde, 1979-1989, a Semiotic Analysis. Hong Kong: Timezone 8, 2003: 162-73 (Not in Course Pack) Week 12-2 (Mar 24) Instructor out of town No class Week 13-1 (Mar 29) Rock, Landscape, and Beyond
5 1999: 66-72, 130-136. (Not in Course Pack) Week 13-2 (Mar 31) The Frozen Sign of Commodities Bryson, Norman. "The Post-Ideological Avant-Garde." In Inside Out: New Chinese Art, edited by Minglu Gao. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998: 51-58. 1999: 149-159. (Not in Course Pack) Week 14-1 (Apr 5) Easter Holiday No class Week 14-2 (Apr 7) Monuments and Ruins 1999: 109-119. (Not in Course Pack) Week 15-1 (Apr 12) Cynical Pop Kracauer, Siegfried. The Cult of Distraction and "Boredom." In The Mass Ornament: Weimar Essays. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995: 331-336. 1999: 142-147. (Not in Course Pack) Week 15-2 (Apr 14) Final
6 Websites of Interest 1. Revolutionary Art Websites: Picturing Power: http://kaladarshan.arts.ohio-state.edu/exhib/poster/pictpow1.html Stefan Landsberger's Chinese Propaganda Poster Pages: http://www.iisg.nl/~landsberger/ ChineseBook.com (Model Opera Posters): http://www.chinesebook.com/cultural_revolution_posters/posters_search01.asp?cat=po ster&sub=drama&n=1 Posters from the Cultural Revolution (1966-76): http://courses.smsu.edu/dvh804f/cultrevolt.htm 2. Contemporary Chinese Art Websites: Chinese-Art.com: http://www.chinese-art.com/index_nonflash.htm China Avant-Garde: http://www.china-avantgarde.com/ Inside Out New Chinese Art: http://www.asiasociety.org/arts/insideout/ Xu Bing Website: http://www.xubing.com/