My name is Jane Marie Russell, and I'm a MA Asian Studies student at Florida
International University. I just wrote a paper comparing the
Tokyo and Beijing Olympics in terms of the manipulatuion of cultural memory, so here are
a few reading suggestions:

Bender, Thomas. "Foreward." _In Republican Beijing:
The City and Its Histories_, by Madeleine Yue Dong,
xiii-xxi. Berkeley: University of California Press,
2003.

Broudehoux, Anne-Marie. _The Making and Selling of
Post-Mao Beijing_. New York: Routledge, 2004.

Elegant, Simon. ""China's Olympic Warmup"." _TIME
Magazine_, September 20, 2007.

Li, Lillian, Alison J. Dray-Novey, and Hali Kong.
_Beijing: From Imperial Capital to Olympic City_.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.

MacLeod, Calum. "Sky High." USA Today, August 31,
2007:
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/life/20070831/dd_cover31.art.htm.

The Beijing Olympic Committee's website
(http://en.beijing2008.cn) has a lot of resources
from the official perspective. You should also look
up articles from The New York Times, The Economist,
and The Wall Street Journal for the American
viewpoint.

At some point in your class, you might want to
address the Tokyo Games in 1964. If so, here are a
few references:
Aso, Noriko. "Sumptuous Re-Past: The 1964 Tokyo
Olympics Arts Festival." _Positions: East Asia
Cultures Critique_ 10, no. 1 (2002).

Hitoshi, Chiba. "1964: An Olympic Year." _The Japan
Journal_, August 2005.

Huffman, James L. ""Japanese Society in the
Twentieth Century"." _Education about ASIA_, 2005:
24-30.

Tokyo Olympiad. Directed by Ichikawa Kon. 2002.

Hope this is helpful,

JMR

Jane Marie Russell
Florida International University

The Stanford Program on International and Cross-cultural Education has put together an excellent unit on "The Road to Beijing" which looks at the preparations for the games from many dimensions. The units also feature two documentary films. One focuses on Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble and the other was produced by NBC and features comments from athletes. Download resources or purchase the units at: http://spice.stanford.edu/cata...the_road_to_beijing/

Educators may be interested in presentations made at a USC conference on the impact of the Beijing Games. Speakers from China and the United States looked at domestic political issues, international perceptions, the costs and presumed economic impact, and the role of various media. Video of each of the presentations is available at: http://china.usc.edu/ShowArticle.aspx?articleID=1410