Racing to Be a Better Race: A Longue Durée History of China’s Toilet Revolution

Science and Technology in Asia @Harvard
March 26, 10:30 am ET over Zoom

“In 2015, President Xi Jinping announced China’s “toilet revolution” (cesuo geming 厕所革命), one year after Prime Minister Narendra Modi had launched his “Clean India Mission” (Swachh Bharat Abhiyan). These two high-profile campaigns reveal a geopolitics in which the lowly loo is a signifier of civilization as well as a potent tool of soft power. In this talk I trace the many threads of this story from the era of high imperialism through the present with attention to shifting sensibilities of smell, imperial encounters, anti-Chinese racism, class hierarchies, labor disputes, competition for toilet markets, and gendered politics of shame.”
 
About our speaker: Nicole Elizabeth Barnes is Associate Professor of History and Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies at Duke University. 

Contact
Victor Seow
Associate Professor of the History of Science
Harvard University
seow@fas.harvard.edu

More Information: https://scholar.harvard.edu/seow/STinAsia