| Part II | Option |
Course Description 2025-26
China today is the largest infrastructure builder in the world. This course revisits China’s modern transformation from the perspective of infrastructure.
Railroads, toilets, dams, and cassettes. With these and other infrastructures, this course revisits modern Chinese history from an infrastructural perspective. By placing the construction and destruction of infrastructures at the centre of modern Chinese history, students will explore China’s encounters with infrastructures across different historical periods and investigate the myriad forces behind each infrastructural project, both for and against it. This course demonstrates how historical studies of infrastructures can challenge conventional narratives of nation-building, revolution, and reform. At the same time, it also draws on China’s experiences with infrastructure to understand and complicate the global histories of governance and materiality. In roughly chronological order, this course examines a specific aspect of infrastructure in each session, pairing the readings with a wide variety of primary sources to contextualize them within the broader historical context.
Form and Conduct
There will be a three-hour sit-down written examination consisting of ten essay questions, of which students will be required to answer three.
This description is subject to change, for the latest information, students should consult the Undergraduate Handbook available on the Faculty Intranet.