“The Lost Generation” in Xuese langman
F06
Shunzhu Wang
One of the chaotic campaigns of The Great Cultural Revolution was the displacement of “The Educated Youth,” the coerced movement of middle and high school students from their home cities to mountains and villages in remote areas. This displacement created a sense of alienation and a vagabond mentality, which greatly changed their attitude toward love and life. It also affected their ability to function “properly” in society. This course will examine that sense of alienation and vagabond mentality through a contemporary novel, Xuese langman (Blood Color Romance), which has been made into a TV series. We will seek to understand contemporary China by following the trajectory of the main characters’ journey from the city to the country and back to the city, their experience of life as students, peasants, soldiers, unemployed personnel, beggars, and business owners, their desire for and inability to commit to love, their sense of loss, joy, hope, despair and frustration. Through reading, discussion, research, and writing, students will develop their literary sensitivity and analytical/critical capability. Students will have an opportunity to learn, step by step, how to write a paper that is well researched, structured, and convincingly argued. Conducted in Chinese. High-intermediate level.