Students from various countries are showing interest in the philosophy of the late Mao Zedong due to the growing popularity of an online course focused on the former Chinese leader, according to a report by the Global Times.
The course, aptly entitled Introduction to Mao Zedong Thought, was formulated by associate professor Feng Wuzhong from the School of Marxism at the Tsinghua University.
It has been available to the public since Sept. 15 on Cambridge-based edX, which is a massive online courses platform (MOOC) created by MIT and Harvard.
As the first registered ideological and political theory course of China in edX, it provides curious and interested students the opportunity to take a rare peek into a course that is mandatory learning for Chinese students.
Essentially influenced by writings from Marx and Lenin, Mao Zedong Thought preaches the political theory introduced by the first generation of the Communist Party of China (CPC).
"There are many misunderstandings about Mao's thoughts in the global community. Many people either canonize Mao's thoughts or demonize them. I hope my course could enable foreigners, especially young people, to understand his thought from a rational perspective," said Feng.
He also admitted that he was surprised that the course was gaining an initial amount of interest from students and other individuals outside of China. For Feng, it shows that there is not only a huge market for Chinese-made products but also for Chinese thought and theory.
Kelly, a New Zealand-based lecturer in human geography and a Chinese researcher, shared that she took the course to find out more about how the course is taught in Chinese universities to help her understand the perspective of her Chinese students, according to the Global Times report.
"I also teach a little bit of Marxist theory in my development studies courses. As a geographer, I get the idea of 'sinicization,'or more generally, making abstract theories fit place-based realities," said Kelly.