Title: Lecture Series on Humanities and Arts: Is Embracing the Future Possible in a "Lying Flat" Lifestyle?
Time: May22, 2025,14:00 - 17:00
Venue: Room 310, East Building, Gulou Campus, Nanjing University
Speaker: Luo Xiaoming, scholar in Cultural Studies, full-time researcher at the Center for Contemporary Chinese Culture, Shanghai University. She has served as Chair of the Department of Cultural Studies since 2019 and was a visiting Scholar at Birkbeck, University of London.
Moderator: Chen Jing, Associate Professor at the School of Arts, Nanjing University.
Content Summary
This lecture focuses on the possibility of embracing the future in a "lying flat" lifestyle. By examining a Douban group called "FIRE Life (Poor Version)," we will analyze how young people in contemporary China are attempting to reorganize their relationships with work, life, and the future in the face of instability. The lecture will explore the reaction patterns of some Chinese youth beyond the mainstream "grinding" and "lying flat" lifestyles, and place these patterns within the broader context of China's social reproduction system. We will also discuss the emerging understandings of work, life, and self, and how these understandings might shape the future.
