LAS264 Contemporary Chinese Society and Culture

Autumn Semester 2025/26

20 Credits

Module Organiser: Dr David Tobin (d.tobin@sheffield.ac.uk)

Overview

To speak about contemporary Chinese society is to speak about human diversity; macro and micro scales; vast histories and geographies; and the world’s largest media market. Due to these immense challenges the study of contemporary China not only helps us understand the people who identify as ‘Chinese’ but also provides rich theoretical questions for the understanding of culture and society in general.This module introduces students to different approaches to thinking about Chinese society, and will deepen student’s theoretical understanding of society and culture more broadly. In particular, we will focus on the three ‘big questions’ within social theory, using Chinese contexts to deepen our thinking: what things and activities do we include in ‘the social’ (action); why do some things stay the same (order/tradition); and why do some things change? In doing so we will increase students’ capacity to analyse scholarly and popular textual representations of Chinese people and critically engage with how these methods relate to wider sociocultural questions.

Topics covered may be taken from

• What is Chinese Society? 

• Doing Ethnicity (Social Action 1): Who is Chinese? 

• Promoting Chineseness (Social Action 2): Discourses about Chineseness on the Global Stage 

• Learning to be ‘Chinese’ (Social Action 3): Personhood as locus of change and control 

• Family and Kinship (Social order ): Relatedness and social reproduction 

• Religion and everyday life (social order): Beyond the ‘big faiths’ 

• Governance and seeing like a state (social order): The state as a social institution 

• People on the Move (social change): Mobility and change in China 

• Things on the Move (social change): Health and mobility 

• Uncertain presents and futures (action, order and change together): Bringing things together: COVID as a case study 

Skills Development

• Identify and explain disciplinary approaches to the study of Chinese society and culture

• Understand the key issues within contemporary social theory debates

• Demonstrate the importance of Chinese society to global research

• Analyse historical and contemporary media sources from Chinese-speaking countries

• Apply basic qualitative research skills to develop their own independent research interest

• Create novel conceptual insights about Chinese society and culture through primary research tasks

Study Hours

The University recommends that you spend 200 hours working on a 20-credit module. This will include:

• Lectures 10 hours

• Seminars 10 hours

• Independent study 180 hours

Assessment

• Participation Blog (20%)

• Essay (80%)