Home>Courses>Family, Marriage and Love: Exploring Intimate Relationships in Contemporary China

This course introduces anthropological perspectives on a range of intimate relationships in contemporary Chinese society. It seeks to denaturalize notions such as family, marriage, and love through contextualization—putting them back in the historical, political, and socio-cultural context in which they are embedded. The questions that will be raised in class include: What factors shape the economic and social formations of intimate relationships in contemporary China? What does it mean to say that romantic love is an ideology? How do Chinese people “do” family today? How have family structures, courtship patterns, and gender relations been changing across different regions and groups in China? And what new ethical configurations and forms of inequality are emerging in the process? Are intimate relationships formed in the virtual world any less authentic than those formed in the real world?

The course approaches various kinds of intimate relationships through an anthropological lens, which means that we will explore people’s intimate life experiences via ethnography. Based on a series of captivating readings, video clips, discussions, and other class activities, this course invites students to pay attention to the interconnectedness between the “private” and the “public”—the everyday practices and the economic and socio-political processes. Moreover, this course aims to show how to conduct ethnographic fieldwork and how to use the data collected during fieldwork for analyzing intimate relationships in Chinese society.

WEEK 1 (5 Sep): An Anthropological Approach to Intimate Relationships in Contemporary China
NO TUTORIAL

WEEK 2 (12 Sep): Constructing Ideals: Changing Public Discourses Surrounding Family, Love and Sexuality I
NO TUTORIAL (Sign up for the tutorial facilitation)

WEEK 3 (19 Sep): Constructing Ideals: Changing Public Discourses Surrounding Family, Love and Sexuality II

WEEK 4 (26 Sep): Learning Ethnographic Methods for Studying Everyday Intimate Experiences
NO TUTORIAL

WEEK 5 (3 Oct): Courtship, Love and Premarital Sex

WEEK 6 (10 Oct): The Politics of Conjugal Relationship I (Gender Dynamics)

WEEK 7 (17 Oct): The Politics of Conjugal Relationship II (Love and Sexuality)
Ethnographic Interview Due

WEEK 8 (24 Oct): The Politics of Conjugal Relationship III (Economic Aspect)

WEEK 9 (31 Oct): Intergenerational Relationship I: Parenting
Final Research Paper Proposal Due (OPTIONAL)

WEEK 10 (7 Nov): Individual Consultation (TBA) 
NO TUTORIAL

WEEK 11 (14 Nov): NO CLASS, 94^th Congregation

WEEK 12 (21 Nov): Intergenerational Relationship II: Filial Piety

WEEK 13 (28 Nov): Beyond Normative Family and Marriage: Sexuality and Performativity

Friday, 6 December 2024: Final Paper Due

CHES3014 Course Grading System:

Attendance and Participation                15%

Discussion Facilitation                          20%

Ethnographic Interview                           25%                             

Reflection paper                                   40%    

CHES5106 Course Grading System:

Attendance and Participation                 15%

Discussion Facilitation                          20%

Ethnographic Interview                           25%                             

Research paper                                   40%                                        

Students should submit written assignments to the Veriguide system and print out the Veriguide receipt and scan it into a PDF file before submitting to the Blackboard. See the website: https://services.veriguide.org/academic/login_CUHK.jspx. Any cases of plagiarism will be severely penalized and reported to the Dean of the Faculty of Arts, which could result in failure or expulsion from the University. http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/policy/academichonesty/.