HIST 105-05, China's Cultural Revolution, Fall 2008

Abstract

In 1966, what had once seemed the best disciplined and most stable of dictatorial states dissolved into anarchy, and those youth who under Chairman Mao’s direction turned society upside down became China’s “lost generation.” Only after the Chairman’s death did sweeping reforms allow the Chinese people to publicly reflect, recount, and even criticize. This opening of the floodgates spawned histories, memoirs, films, and novels, but each tells a different story with a different agenda. This course examines the many narratives of China’s Cultural Revolution in an effort to better understand how each source engages historical memory while responding to its own times.