The  Contemporary History Institute  hosts Dr. Sarah Chang discussing "Produce First and Consume Later: Factory Construction and the Rural-Urban Divide During the Great Leap Forward" on Thursday October 3 at 5:00 p.m. in Bentley Hall 124.

Dr. Chang holds the position of Assistant Professor in History at Miami (OH) University. Her research examines the rise and fall of large state-owned factories in southwestern China. Her work focuses on how gender and the rural-urban divide served as important axes of difference that facilitated the expropriation of labor and resources in the nation’s pursuit of a communist utopia. Inspired by her childhood memories growing up in the residential neighborhood of a steel tube factory, Dr. Chang’s current book project details the biographies of two steel mills in Chengdu, China, focusing on the creation and disintegration of socialist industrial spaces in China and the experiences of the workers, families, and children who lived in them.

This event is free and open to the public.