Shanghai Chinese Language & Culture Curriculum

Essentials of structure, oral practice, introduction to the writing system. Recommended for students with no previous coursework in Chinese.

• Units: 8
• BU Hub areas:
  • Individual in Community

Prerequisite: CAS LC 112 Second-term Chinese, or the equivalent.

Review of structure and grammar, practice in conversation and writing, introduction to reading.

• Units: 8
• BU Hub areas:
  • Individual in Community
  • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy

Prerequisite: CAS LC 212 Fourth-term Chinese, or the equivalent.

Readings in modern Chinese. Readings and discussion in Chinese of selected nonliterary and literary materials, including newspaper articles, short stories, and essays. Regular compositions required.

• Units: 8
• BU Hub areas:
  • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy

Prerequisite: CAS LC 312 Sixth-term Chinese, or the equivalent.

Focuses on improving reading and writing skills through an understanding of Chinese culture and social realities.

• Units: 8

This course aims to provide students with an in-depth and critical understanding of the opportunities and challenges in global consumer and business markets, with a focus on the perspectives of Asian and Chinese consumers. The curriculum centers on essential knowledge and skills required for a marketing manager to effectively develop and execute strategic, tactical, and administrative marketing strategies and operations. Additionally, the course emphasizes the growing importance of e-marketing in today’s interconnected world.

• Units: 4

Spring only.

China has been undergoing two exceedingly rapid transformations in the past half a century: a demographic transition with dramatic decrease in fertility and mortality, and an economic transition from a planned economy to a market economy. The compressed demographic transition has made China a country with a very low population growth rate and accelerating population aging, and unprecedented economic reform has lifted China to the ranks of middle-income countries. This course aims to introduce basic concepts and theories in demography, discuss the interconnection between demographic change and socioeconomic transformation, and also explore the socioeconomic consequences of population policies in China.

• Units: 4

Spring only.

This course examines health and illness from a cultural perspective. Specifically, we will analyze the social meanings associated with health and illness, medical knowledge production, medical decision-making, and global health in cross-cultural contexts. The students will have a chance to delve into issues related with the social processes of framing illness, the medicalization of life, the complexity and uncertainty surrounding medical decisions, and the cultural aspects of health practices across the globe.

• Units: 4

Spring only.

This course aims to situate students’ fieldwork experiences within a framework of the local social contexts to provide students with conceptual and methodological tools for approaching their field placements; to evaluate their own experiences and observations through critical reflection; Anthropology provides a new language, a set of technical concepts, and a new methodological toolkit that will hopefully help you better observe, describe and understand the local social world around you. In learning the anthropological perspective, I hope that you develop a critical, even “skeptical” view toward superficial explanations of human behavior by replacing your common-sense understandings of social interaction with an uncommon sense about the structure and process of social life. As we learn about cultural anthropology as a social science we will learn to discriminate between reasonable and unreasonable generalizations made on the basis of limited evidence.

• Units: 4

Fall only.

This course will guide students in developing social research skills in real-life topics. By taking this course, students will learn different procedures of social research methods. Also, by applying one or several research methods in studying a substantive question, students are expected to accumulate first-hand experience in social science studies. In this process, they also garner a better understanding of Chinese society.

• Units: 4

This course aims to familiarize students with a number of themes about Chinese society. As the rapid development and comprehensive social transition in China has increasingly been a global focus, it is necessary to better understand the social, cultural and political forces that underpin China’s unique development trajectory and the current situation. In turn, such an understanding further calls for a process of learning an array of key notions and conceptual tools that will be methodically introduced and explicated throughout the semester.

• Units: 4

Fall only.

This course is offered to any undergraduate students interested in the science of psychology. The course embraces the vision of American Psychological Association (APA), “to advance the creation, communication and application of psychological knowledge to benefit society and improve people’s lives” (www.apa.org). Therefore, students are encouraged to apply what they have learned from the course to enhance the quality of their lives as well as the lives of others if possible. Moreover, as the name of the course suggests, it is hoped that by the emphasis of a cross-cultural perspective in teaching, students may develop the sensitivity as well as the appreciation for diversity in human lives, and therefore embrace a more open and tolerant attitude towards themselves and others.

• Units: 4

This course is designed to introduce students to the sociological study of religion in traditional Chinese society and the late modern world. The purpose of this course is to explain differing perspectives in understanding the significant role of Chinese religion in both the traditional and contemporary world. Discussion will focus on the similarities and contrasts in the dynamics of modernization as experienced in China and in the West, especially those spiritual convictions that lie at the heart of the Chinese heritage of popular belief and practice.

• Units: 4

Fall only.

This course provides an overview of social capital research and its implication for individual mobility and social support. Topics covered in this class include the different schools of social capital, its individual and collective roots, how it relates to social support and individual health, as well as its application for contemporary economic and social life.

• Units: 4

As one of the most populous countries in the world, China has experienced a rapid increase in its rural migrant population since the early 1980s, when the reform of the household registration (hukou) system was on the agenda. Due to the large number of rural laborers leaving the countryside to work in urban areas, China has undergone the largest and fastest urbanization in the world. This course starts from introducing the evolution of spatial patterns of internal migration and reasons for migration; and tries to illustrate the characteristics and wellbeing of the migrants; finally evaluates the impacts of the migration on urbanization and regional development.

• Units: 4