2016-17 marks the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China. AFE is offering a re-examination in two strands: one strand will consider the political and social ramifications of the movement through independent reading of China Under Mao: A Revolution Derailed, by Andrew Walder, with 4 webinars with the author. The second strand, will read literary and autobiographical accounts of life under Mao in four different periods, from 1949-1980, divided among four book group offerings. Teachers are free to participate in all just one or all 5 of the reading groups offered in both strands.

Born Red, by Gao Yuan is the autobiographical account of a teenage boy and member of the Red Guards, who is now a Chinese journalist. The Cowshed; Memories of the Cultural Revolution is a new autobiographical account by one of China's leading writers, Ji XIanlin. An exploration of the upheavals of the period from two very different perspectives.