Carolyn Hsu

Assistant Professor
Colgate University
Department of Sociology and Anthropology

Previous Positions

• 1999-2000 Visiting Assistant Professor Williams College
  Department of Anthropology and Sociology
• 1994-8 Teaching Assistant University of California, San Diego
  Department of Sociology and Department of History
• 1991-1993 Instructor, ESL Jiangxi Institute of Finance and Economics, China
  Departments of Foreign Trade and Accounting

Education

• UC San Diego Ph. D. Sociology September, 2000
• UC San Diego C. Phil. Sociology 1996
• UC San Diego M.A. Sociology 1995
• Yale University B.A. East Asian Studies, cum laude 1991

Fellowships and Honors

• 1999 UCSD Departmental Dissertation Writing Fellowship
• 1998 National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship Travel Award
• 1997 Council on East Asian Studies FLAS Fellowship
• 1996 UCSD George Haydu Prize (For work in the study of culture)
• 1994-97 National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship
• 1994/Summer Council on East Asian Studies FLAS Fellowship
• 1993-94 Regents Fellowship, UCSD

Publications and Presentations

• 2001   "Political Narratives and the Production of Legitimacy: The Case
  of Corruption in Post-Mao China." Qualitative Sociology, forthcoming,
  Winter, 2001.
• 2000   "Political Narratives and the Production of Legitimacy: The Case of Corruption in Post-Mao China." American Sociological Association,
  Annual Meeting, Washington, DC.
• 1999   "Market Socialism and Daily Life: Searching for the Emerging
  Foundations of Legitimacy in the PRC." American Sociological
  Association, Annual Meeting, Chicago.
• 1999   "Strategies for Dealing with Market Socialism on the Ground
  Level." Pacific Sociological Association, Annual Meeting, Portland, OR.
• 1996   "Corruption and Morality in the People's Republic of China."
  Indiana East Asian Working Paper Series 8(Spring, 1996):1-26.
• 1996   Ibid. American Sociological Association, Annual Meeting, New York.
• 1995   "Shifting Circles of Citizenship in China." American Sociological Association,Annual Meeting, Washington, DC.

Ph. D. Dissertation

"Creating Market Socialism: Narratives and Emerging Economic Institutions in the People's Republic of China"

Dissertation Abstract:

Since 1978, the leaders of the People's Republic of China have been transforming the economic institutions of Maoist socialism into the economic institutions of market socialism. This move to re-enter the global market and to become one of its major players has had profound effects on China's citizens, who have experienced traumatic and wide-ranging institutional changes in their lives, This provides an excellent opportunity to study the process of institutional transformation as well as to address some of the weaknesses in new institutional theories, specifically the simplistic understanding of culture and the failure incorporate the role of non-elites. In this dissertation, these blind spots were mitigated through the use of narrative theory, which allowed me to examine the contribution of ordinary citizens and the relationship between new institutions and culture.

I argue that new economic institutions are shaped in part by ordinary citizens, who negotiate practices and determine their strategies of action not by utilitarian calculation, but instead by emplotting their circumstances and choices into meaningful, collectively constructed narratives. Far from passively reacting, they actively synthesized narratives from their cultural repertoires in order to create a new moral order for market socialism. This dissertation is based on research done in 1997-8 in the city of Harbin, utilizing ethnographic methods and interviews. Areas of Interest

Research

Modern Chinese society; Sociology of culture; Globalization and global markets; Institutions and organizations; Post-socialist development; Economic sociology; Social mobility and inequality; Morality and religion.

Teaching

Modern Chinese society, Globalization; Sociology of culture; Nationalism and citizenship, Chinese and Japanese culture and society; Globalization; Social inequality; East Asian culture, religion and ethics; Classical sociological theory, Qualitative field methods; Introduction to Sociology.

Manuscripts in Process

• "The Role of Culture in Institutional Change: The Contribution of Narrative Analysis to New Institutionalism"
• "Constructing the Business Class: Narratives and Social Identity in Market Socialist China."

Teaching Experience

Course Instructor: Colgate University Department of Sociology and Anthropology

• Introduction to Sociology (Fall, 2000 and Spring, 2001)
• Globalization and Everyday Life (Fall 2000)
• Sociology of Nationalism (Spring, 2001)
• Department of Core Cultures Core China (Spring, 2001)

Course Instructor: Williams College Department of Anthropology and Sociology:

• Modern Chinese Society (Fall, 1999)
• Globalization and Everyday Life (Fall, 1999)
• Invitation to Sociology (Spring, 2000)
• Citizenship, Community and Culture (Spring, 2000)
• Religion and Culture in China and Japan (Spring, 2000)

Teaching Assistant: University of California

Department of Sociology:

• Classical Sociological Theory (Fall, 1998)

Department of History:

• China and Japan in Global Perspective (Winter, 1997)
• East Asia: the Great Traditions (Fall, 1996)

Foreign Language

• Chinese (Mandarin) - fluent