Ageing, longevity and socialism: gerontology in Maoist China

Seminar summary

Drawing on the tools of the socio-anthropology of the life course, this research seminar analyses the ways in which life stages have been structured in China, and how contemporary Chinese society currently regulates and shapes the experience of age, life courses and intergenerational relationships. The first year of the seminar will focus more specifically on the social construction of life stages and the thresholds that define them. More specifically, the aim will be to historicise the categories, representations and changing meanings attributed to childhood, youth, adulthood and old age in the history of contemporary China, paying attention both to the evolution of the terms used to describe these life stages, to the factors (political, economic, institutional and cultural) that shape these experiences, and to the resulting social phenomena. Combining an introduction to key social science texts on the stages of life with the growing body of literature on these subjects in 20th-century China, this research seminar is aimed at researchers, PhD students and Master’s students alike.

Organisers: Justine Rochot (View e-mail); Marie Bellot (View e-mail)

Suggested reading

● LOVELL, Stephen. 2003. “Soviet Socialism and the Construction of Old Age.” Jahrbücher Für Geschichte Osteuropas 51(4): 564–85.
● ZHENG, Guozhang 郑国章. 1959. “Laonian xue 老年学” [Gerontology]. Kexue tongbao (科学通报) 10: 320–1.