Professor Beverley Hooper

BA (Tasmania), MA, PhD (Australian National)

School of Languages, Arts and Societies

Emeritus professor of Chinese Studies

b.j.hooper@sheffield.ac.uk
Profile

I am a social historian of modern and contemporary China. My research has dealt with the Western experience in China and issues concerning the youth generation, gender and consumer rights in the post-Mao reform era.

Since studying in Beijing in 1975-77 as an early participant in student exchanges with the PRC, I have undertaken a number of research projects in China sponsored by organisations including the British Academy and the Australian Academy of the Humanities in conjunction with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Before coming to 葫芦影业 in 2000, I was Foundation Professor of Asian Studies at the University of Western Australia. I also served on the Australian Government鈥檚 Australia-China Council and in 1995-96 as President of the Asian Studies Association of Australia.

Research interests

My current research focuses on Westerners in China during the Mao era. My book Foreigners under Mao: Western Lives in China 1949-1976 examines the lives of six groups of Westerners: 鈥榝oreign comrades鈥, twenty-two former Korean War POWs who chose China ahead of repatriation, diplomats, foreign correspondents, 鈥榝oreign experts鈥 and language students.

The book reveals that Mao鈥檚 China was not as closed to Western residents as has conventionally been portrayed, particularly but not only in the United States, and shows how their everyday lives were affected by the tumultuous politics of the Mao years as well as by the communist government鈥檚 specific policies towards them.

Hong Kong publication: July 2016.
European and North American publication: November 2016. Available from Amazon and Columbia University Press

Publications

Books, edited books and monographs

The Private Journal of James Burney (edited and annotations). Canberra: National Library of Australia, 1975.

Inside Peking: A Personal Report. London: McDonald & Jane鈥檚, 1979.

Youth in China. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1985.

China Stands Up: Ending the Western Presence, 1948-1950, London: Allen & Unwin, 1986.

[with Tim Wright] China, (Asia-Australia Briefing Papers), vol.1, no.2. Sydney: The Asia-Australia Institute, 1991. A revised second edition was published as Asia-Australia Briefing Papers, vol. 2, no. 7, 1993.

[edited with David S.G. Goodman] China's Quiet Revolution: New Interactions Between State and Society. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994.

Foreigners under Mao: Western Lives in China, 1949-1976. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2016.

Articles in scholarly journals and books
鈥楾he Australia-China Student Exchange Scheme: Could it be More Effective?鈥, Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, 1, 1979: 113-24.

鈥楥hina鈥檚 Modernisation: Are Young women Going to Lose Out鈥, Modern China, 10.3, 1984: 317-43.

The Youth Problem: Deviations from the Socialist road鈥, in Graham Young, ed., China: Dilemmas of Modernisation. London: Croom Helm, 1985, 199-236.

鈥楾he Great Divide: Gender and Chinese Politics鈥, Asian Studies Review, 13.1, 1989:12-18.

鈥楻e-evaluating Chinese Youth鈥, Asian Studies Review, 14.1, 1990: 25-30.

鈥楪ender and Education鈥, in Irving Epstein, ed., Chinese Education: Problems, Policies, and Prospects. New York: Garland Publishing, 1991, 352-74.

鈥楻ethinking Contemporary China鈥, Asian Studies Review, 16.1, 1992: 89-105.

(Reprint of the Fifty-second George Ernest Morrison Lecture in Ethnology, Canberra, 1991).

鈥楾he Unpromised Land: A Jewish Refugee settlement in the Kimberley?鈥, in Aspects of Ethnicity in Western Australia, ed. Richard Bosworth and Margot Melia. Perth: Centre for Western Australian History, 1991, 85-94.

鈥榃omen, Consumerism and the State in post-Mao China鈥, Asian Studies Review, 17.3, 1994: 73-83.

鈥楩rom Mao to Madonna: Sources on Contemporary Chinese culture鈥, Southeast Asian Journal of Social Science, 22, 1994: 161-69.

'"Flower Vase and Housewife": Women in China's Consumer Society', in Krishna Sen and Maila Stivens, ed., Gender and Power in Affluent Asia. London: Routledge, 1998, 167-93.

鈥楻esearching Women鈥檚 Lives in Contemporary China鈥, in Antonia Finnane and Anne McLaren, ed., Dress, Sex and Text in Chinese Culture. Melbourne: Monash Asia Institute, 1999, 243-62.

鈥楪lobalisation and Resistance in post-Mao China: The Case of Foreign Consumer Products鈥, Asian Studies Review, 24.4, 2000: 439-70.

鈥楥onsumer Voices: Asserting Rights in post-Mao China鈥 China Information, 14.1, 2000: 92-128.

General articles and working papers
鈥楿pstairs, Downstairs in 鈥淣ew China鈥濃, Encounter, March 1980: 13-20.

[with David Finkelstein] 鈥57 Years inside China: An American鈥檚 Odyssey鈥, Asia (The Asia Society), January/February 1980: 10-11, 46.

鈥楶opular Books on China: The New Journalistic Wave鈥, Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, 10, 1983: 157-67.

鈥楳any a Guise鈥, Australian Left Review, 125, February 1991: 27-29.

'Chinese Youth: The Nineties Generation', Current History, 90, 1991: 264-69.

鈥楾he History of the Teaching of Asian Studies in Australian Universities鈥, Australian Historical Association Bulletin, 81, 1995: 23-30.

鈥楪ender equality鈥, 鈥榃omen (organizations, political role)鈥, 鈥榊outh policy and organisations鈥, in Colin Mackerras, Donald H. McMillen and Andrew Watson, ed., Dictionary of the Politics of the People鈥檚 Republic of China. London: Routledge, 1998, 98-9, 230-3, 241-3.

鈥楥hinese Studies鈥, in Reference Group for the Australian Academy of the Humanities, Knowing Ourselves and Others: The Humanities in Australia into the 21st Century. Canberra: Australian Research Council, 1998, 57-66.

鈥楰eeping up with the Wangs: Consuming Desires in post-Mao China鈥, Asia-Pacific Magazine, 9-10, 1988: 17-22.

鈥楩ighting the Fakes鈥, China Review, 22, 2002: 18-19.

The Consumer Citizen in Contemporary China. Working Paper No 12. Lund: Lund University, Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, 2005.