Workshop - New Perspectives on China’s Socialist History

Over the last decade, the understanding of China’s socialist history and in particular the Maoist period has profited from both, the introduction of new approaches and the accessibility of new sources. This workshop covers new aspects of China’s cultural, social and political history from the formation of Maoism in the early 1940s to the immediate post-Mao period in the 1980s. It is part of a workshop series which facilitates the exchange between researchers of the University of Freiburg and the University of Nanjing (PRC) and supported by the Freiburg-Nanjing Center for Modern China Studies.

Workshop Program

Friday, April 26, 2019

1:15 pm Welcome and Introduction

1:30-3:30 pm Panel 1: The Place and Complexities of Reading and Books under Maoism

Chair: Haiyan Zhou (University of Nanjing)

• Maoist Reading? The Reader in Socialist Realist Fiction

     Lena Henningsen (University of Freiburg)

• The Production of the Woodblock-Printed Edition of The Communist Manifesto
  Lara Yuyu Yang (University of Freiburg

 
3:30-4:00 pm Tea and Coffee

4:00-6:00 pm Panel 2: Pictorial Strategies in Propaganda and Political Mobilization

Chair: Daniel Leese (University of Freiburg)

• New Task and Old Tradition: Image Rhetoric Strategy in the Anti-Illiteracy

     Campaign of the People’s Republic of China
     Xiaoyu Li (University of Nanjing)

• From Peasants and Workers to One Leader: A Propaganda Study of the Five

     Versions of the Image of RMB

     Xianghui Pan (University of Nanjing)

 
6:30 pm Dinner (for speakers)

Saturday, April 27, 2019

9:00-11:00 am Panel 3: Labor Heroes and Heroines in the Cultural and Social History of China

Chair: Xiaoyu Li (University of Nanjing)

• Bringing Labor Heroes Center Stage: The Construction of Authority and New Social Relations in the Yan’an Period

     Nicola Spakowski (University of Freiburg)

• Typical Reporting as Social Action: A Case Study of Woman Labor Heroes' Stories in the 1950s

     Haiyan Zhou (University of Nanjing)

 
11:00-11:15 am Tea and Coffee

 
11:15 am-1:15 pm Panel 4: China’s Socialist History in the Light of New Approaches

Chair: Nicola Spakowski (University of Freiburg)

• Towards a Theory of "Emotional Practice": Dichotomy, Expression of Emotion and Emotion as Practice

     Guangfeng Yuan (University of Nanjing)

• Internal Information Flows in the Propaganda Sector in the Early People's Republic of China

     Daniel Leese (University of Freiburg)

 
1:15-2:00 pm Lunch (for speakers)

The workshop is organized by

Prof. Dr. Daniel Leese
Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
Sinologie
daniel.leese@sinologie.uni-freiburg.de