Date of Award
Spring 5-1-2025
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
Sociology
First Advisor
Celso M. Villegas
Second Advisor
Harun Erçan
Third Advisor
Yang Xiao
Abstract
A sense of mental vacuum, known as “hollow disease”, has spread among Chinese youth since 2016. This project situates the phenomenon within the broader development of China’s civil society and the structural transformation of the virtual civil sphere over the past decade. It aims to analyze the underlying dynamics between the dominant state discourse and the emergent “shadow civil sphere.” Drawing on Jeffrey C. Alexander’s Civil Sphere Theory and narrative construction theories, it addresses an empirical gap by examining individual mental experiences as civil narratives and as strategies for coping with social pressure. Overall, this honors project explores how youth existential crises refract and function as forms of cultural resistance to dominant ideological frameworks in a rapidly changing society under authoritarian governance.
Recommended Citation
Zhang, He, "Against the Chinese Dream and Behind the Loss of Hope: Civil Narratives and the Existential Crisis of Chinese Youth" (2025). Honors Theses. 981.
https://digital.kenyon.edu/honorstheses/981
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