Topic: “Walking into Life” and “Walking out of Life”: Zhang Letian on the Writing of the “Commune” System
Speaker: Professor Zhang Letian
Host: Professor Zhou Haiyan
Time: 2 p.m. to 4 p.m., Friday, October 16, 2020
Location: Room 311, Zijin Building, Xianlin Campus
Tencent Meeting: 132 577 814
Bio:
Zhang Letian was formerly a vice dean of the School of Social Development and Public Policy, Fudan University, and is currently a professor (second tier) and doctoral supervisor there. He is also director of the Contemporary China Social Life Data and Research Center and a Chinese director of the Fudan-UCLA Joint Center for Comparative Studies of Social Life at the university. His research focuses on the system of the people’s commune, community governance, and cultural anthropology. His major publications include Farewell to the Ideal: A Study of the People’s Commune System and Social and Cultural Changes of Rural Areas in Contemporary Northern Zhejiang (co-author: Professor Cao Jinqing). He also published papers in journals at home and abroad, including Anthropology and Medicine and Journal of Modern Chinese History. Among his other works, Farewell to the Ideal: A Study of the People’s Commune System was voted by Lu Xueyi Sociological Development Foundation one of the three greatest sociological works published during the 1979-1999 period.
In recent years, he has led important studies including the project of “Collection, Collation, and Publishing of Grassroots Archives of Rural Areas in Contemporary Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, and Guizhou (2012-2019),” a major project of the National Social Science Fund of China, and the project of “Research of Contemporary China Social Life Data,” a project of the third-phase Project 985 of Fudan University. He has saved, collected, and collated more than 100 batches of social life data from over 20 municipalities and provinces. He also published Tracks of Contemporary Chinese Peasants: Changes of Villages in Northern Zhejiang over the 60 Years series, Chinese Virtues in Folk Letters series, and the electronic database of “China Field Work: Zhang Letian Database of Lianmin Village” ( http://www.zltfieldwork.com ).
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Published October 15, 2020