Talkin’ about a constitution: Rethinking law and civic education in socialist China

Date: Tuesday 7 July 2020
Time: 17:00 - 18:30
Venue
Online
Speaker: Dr Jennifer Altehenger, Jessica Rawson Fellow in Modern Asian History and Associate Professor of Chinese History

Since the People’s Republic of China was established in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has at different times devoted much energy to teaching citizens about the country’s laws. Learning laws was part of the CCP’s vision of transformational governance and mass education campaigns disseminated legal knowledge widely.

In this talk, Dr Altehenger traced the history of this type of civic education, exploring the social and cultural lives of China’s laws between the 1950s and 1980s. She discussed how different groups of people—from state officials to cultural workers, editors, writers, artists and ordinary citizens—contributed to shape the meaning of laws. They helped foster a legal culture that shaped modern China in important ways.

Watch the lecture