Center for East Asian Studies

This event will only be published with the presenters approval upon arrival. The talk will be hybrid and a link will be sent on the day of the event following registration via EventBrite. The history of modern China is conventionally told according to a three-part structure: Republic, Maoist period, and Reform. Many of the heated debates about this period arise from differing political judgements about the impact of each era. But this is not the only way to frame the narrative. In this talk, I will explore other temporal perspectives on the history of rural China, from the end of the imperial order to the present. I will argue that this approach can yield some surprising insights about rural China past, present, and even future.