Censors at work: mechanism of censorship in China under Mao (1949-1976)
Prof. Dr. Peidong Sun, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York (USA), The Department of History
Abstract:
This paper studies the dynamic relationship between censorship and readership in the cultural governance of China. Using previously untapped CCP documents, private archival collections, oral history, personal and work journals, this lecture examines the motivations, mechanisms, impact, and evolution of state censorship on personal readings during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). Specifically, I explore how books that were labeled “fragrant flowers” and “poisonous weeds” evinced the state’s cultural sensibility and its interactions with official censorship. On the one hand, through “singing red and striking black” (chang hong da hei 唱红打黑), the system of cultural governance was both normative and punitive: official censorship and self-censorship induced “political side-taking” (zhengzhi zhandui 政治站队) and “habitual following” (xiguanxing jin‘gen习惯性紧跟) within the society, which in turn normalized political power and transformed censorship into a cultural norm. On the other hand, a thriving literary underground, as seen in the hoarding of forbidden titles and their partial unbanning since 1970, suggests the limitations of censorship and shows how networks of information percolated through official politics and entered everyday life through reading and writing. Adresse Centre for Asian and Transcultural Studies (CATS) Voßstrasse 2 69115 Heidelberg Homepage Veranstaltung https://www.cats.uni-heidelberg.de Veranstalter Centre for Asian and Transcultural Studies (CATS) Homepage Veranstalter https://www.cats.uni-heidelberg.de Kontakt contact@cats.uni-heidelberg.de Alle Termine der Veranstaltung 'Reading in Socialist China — from Mao to Xi': 4 Lectures by CATS Digital Fellow, Professor SUN Peidong on Reading in Socialist China—from Mao to Xi
Professor SUN is the Michael J. Zak associate professor of history for China and Asia-Pacific Studies at Cornell University. After being an associate professor of history at Fudan University (Shanghai), she was a visiting professor at Sciences Po and European Institutes for Chinese studies in Paris from Feb.2020 to June 2021. She is a social and cultural historian of the post-1949 period. Her research has centred on the history and contemporary implications of Chinese everyday life and politics. She has published on topics such as global reading practices, the politics of fashion, and mate choices in China. Peidong is currently working on a book tentatively entitled "Underground Epistemologies: How the Cultural Revolution Shaped the Xi Jinping Generation.”
Professor Sun has been a Digital Research Fellow at Heidelberg since the summer term of 2021. Dienstag, 11. Januar 2022, 14.15 Uhr The Son also rises: Personal Reading Stratification of Educated Youth Generation during the Cultural Revolution (1968-1978) Prof. Dr. Peidong Sun, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York (USA), The Department of History
Dienstag, 18. Januar 2022, 14.15 Uhr Study the “Nine Polemics”: Production, transmission, and consumption of a Maoist Political Campaign (1963-1964) Prof. Dr. Peidong Sun, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York (USA), The Department of History
Dienstag, 25. Januar 2022, 14.15 Uhr Censors at work: mechanism of censorship in China under Mao (1949-1976) Prof. Dr. Peidong Sun, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York (USA), The Department of History
Dienstag, 01. Februar 2022, 14.15 Uhr A brief intro to reading practices in China after 1978 Prof. Dr. Peidong Sun, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York (USA), The Department of History
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