Beijing: China's Heritage and the City as Spectacle

This project investigates the historical context and looming significance of the way in which the Chinese state, and by extension the public and semiprivate media, projects the city and culture of Beijing as being a core of Chinese national identity in the post-socialist era (1978-) and in the years surrounding the 2008 Beijing Olympics. It will use the concepts of heritage and spectacle to study the city and the evocation of history, from imperial times to the present in order to construct a global Chinese identity.