Civil Society in post-Communist Ukraine and pre-Communist Hong Kong

obligatory courses

This lecture-based course for students of area studies compares civil society in post-communist Ukraine and pre-communist Hong Kong.

This lecture-based course for students of area studies compares civil society in post-communist Ukraine and pre-communist Hong Kong. That is precisely what the title suggests. But together we have the possibility for a deeper agenda.

What does it mean to have an area –whether Eastern Europe or East Asia—as the focus of our study? How does that knowledge enable comparison, sharpen understanding? How does our interdisciplinary work prepare us to understand our world in real time? What role if any are we ready to play in the lives of others? These are fundamental questions we will address together as we privilege the concept of civil society for investigation.

Civil society speaks to lofty expectations and everyday practices. It involves governments orchestrating systems and professionals working in offices as well as amateurs going about their business. It acts as a building block for democracy and a bulwark against tyranny; yet it is also a fragile commitment between strangers. It’s considered the world over and yet it emerges from particular cultures and sometimes not at all.

To appreciate such a slippery concept, we will set a creative agenda from the first day of class. Taking as inspiration historian Timothy Snyder’s graphic work, On Tyranny, we will produce a handbook On Civil Society informed by our readings and illustrated by our world. That means we will need to consider not only course materials written by economists and philosophers, political scientists and novelists, but news stories, interviews, field trips and even artifacts we collect including photographs, postcards, documents and objects. With each step we take to appreciate civil society, we will appreciate what we have learned from countless teachers.

Svetlana Alexievich, The Unwomanly Face of War (Random House, 2017)

Robert Bellah et alia, Habits of the Heart (U of California Press, 1985)

Laada Bilaniuk, Contested Tongues (Cornell U Press, 2005)

Dai Sijie, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (Anchor Books, 2000)

Oleksandra Deineko, "Ukraine, War and Resistance," Studia Socjologiczne (2023)

Rosemary Foot, Rights Beyond Borders (Oxford U Press, 2000)

Tim Harper, Underground Asia (Harvard U Press, 2021)

Albert O. Hirschman, Exit, Voice & Loyalty (Harvard U Press, 1970)

Andrei Kurkov, Grey Bees (Deep Vellum, 2022)

Rana Mitter, A Bitter Revolution (Oxford U Press, 2004)

Lida V. Nedilsky, “The Anticult Initiative and Hong Kong Christianity’s Turn from Religious Privilege,” China Information (November 2008)

Lida V. Nedilsky, Converts to Civil Society (Baylor U Press, 2014)

Rosaria Puglisi, “A People’s Army: Civil Society as a Security Actor in Post-Maidan Ukraine,” Revue d'études comparatives Est-Ouest (June 2018)

Adam B. Seligman, “Individualism as Principle,” Indiana Law Journal (Spring 1997)

Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny (Ten Speed Press, 2021)

Final written or oral exam