Staging Chinese Revolution: Theater, Film, and the Afterlives of Propaganda

Xiaomei Chen

Published by Columbia University Press 2016

Staging Chinese Revolution

Theater, Film, and the Afterlives of Propaganda

Xiaomei Chen

https://doi.org/10.7312/chen16638

Overview
Contents

About this book

Staging Chinese Revolution surveys fifty years of theatrical propaganda performances in China, revealing a dynamic, commercial capacity in works often dismissed as artifacts of censorship.

Author / Editor information

Xiaomei Chen is professor of Chinese literature in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of California, Davis, where she also teaches performance studies and comparative literature. She is the author of Occidentalism: A Theory of Counter-Discourse in Post-Mao China (1995; second and expanded edition, 2002), Acting the Right Part: Political Theater and Popular Drama in Contemporary China (2002) and editor of Reading the Right Text (2003) and The Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Drama (Columbia, 2010; abridged edition 2014). She is the coeditor, with Claire Sponsler, of East of West: Cross-Cultural Performances and the Staging of Difference (2001); with Julia Andrews, of Visual Culture in Contemporary China (2001); and with Steven Siyuan Liu, of Hong Shen and the Modern Mediasphere in Republic-Era China (2015).

Reviews

Ban Wang, author of Illuminations from the Past: Trauma, Memory, and History in Modern China:
This inspiring book looks at what goes on under propaganda in contemporary China. Chen lays out contradictions, critiques, personal stories, and political figures in theater, film, and performance. Mixing official agenda with pop culture and romance with history, Staging Chinese Revolution unravels the top-down image of propaganda.

Barbara Mittler, author of A Continuous Revolution: Making Sense of Cultural Revolution Culture:
Staging Chinese Revolution will be eye-opening for many who may have thought of Party History as trite and predictable. Chen convincingly shows that party history is, in fact, a highly dynamic affair. By following its sudden and subtle shifts, we are able to understand better modern and contemporary China.

Alexa Huang, author of Chinese Shakespeare: Two Centuries of Cultural Exchange:
Written by the leading authority on propaganda in modern China, Staging Chinese Revolution eloquently explores the subject with impeccable attention to detail and several genres, from huaju plays, music and dance theater, to eulogy. The book covers a century of Chinese arts and politics and offers convincing explanations of the shifting roles of propaganda in shaping national and personal histories.

Elizabeth J. Perry, author of Anyuan: Mining China's Revolutionary Tradition:
Staging Chinese Revolution is a wonderfully illuminating and engaging study of performance propaganda in contemporary China. From its revolutionary days to the present, the Chinese Communist Party has devoted great attention to the scripting and staging of dramas and films intended to strengthen public support. As Chen shows, however, this was not simply a top-down process. At all stages, artists and intellectuals were crucial actors in this political initiative. This book therefore not only will interest scholars of literature but also has much to offer students of cultural politics and intellectual history.

Marvin Carlson, author of Shattering Hamlet's Mirror: Theatre and Reality:
Staging Chinese Revolution is a major contribution to the growing field of propaganda studies and a landmark example of the intersection between that field and the fields of modern theater and film. Few modern cultures more clearly call for such an analysis than that of China, and this book admirably fulfills that need.

David Der-wei Wang, author of The Lyrical in Epic Time: Modern Chinese Intellectuals and Artists Through the 1949 Crisis:
Xiaomei Chen has done magnificent work in rethinking the meaning and function of theater and historical dynamics in the context of Chinese revolution and its aftermath. She looks into sources drawn from performing arts and media studies, identifies ideological and affective contestations, and ponders the consequences of the politics of theater both on the stage and in everyday life. Both historically informed and theoretically provocative, Chen's book is a most important source for anyone interested in theater studies, comparative literature, and cultural and political history.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	ix
Introduction: Propaganda Performance, History, and Landscape Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. The Place of Chen Duxiu. Political Theater, Dramatic History, and the Question of Representation Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	56
2. The Return of Mao Zedong. A People’s Hero and a “New” Legacy in Postsocialist Performance Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	101
3. The Stage of Deng Xiaoping. The “Incorrigible Capitalist Roader” Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	165
4. The Myth of the “Red Classics”. Three Revolutionary Music-and-Dance Epics and Their Peaceful Restorations Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	235
Epilogue: Where Are the “Founding Mothers”? Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	287
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	297
Works Cited Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	317
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	341

Language: English
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 384
Illustrations
- Other: 32 b&w illustrations

eBook

Published: November 8, 2016
ISBN: 9780231541619