The 2016/17 Yip So Man Wat Memorial Lecture
with Professor Barbara Mittler (University of Heidelberg)
Lecture: Living the Cultural Revolution—Impact Events and the Making of Cultural Memory
China, Handicraft. Licensed from Adobe Stock
Portrait of Mao Zedong at Tianamen Gate. Photo by Richard Fisher used with CC BY 2.0 license.
Mao Zedong-ding. Photo by John Naughton. Used with CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license.
Why is it that for a while in the early 2000s, Mao’s portrait dangled in almost every taxi? Why is it that Mao’s image is to be found everywhere today, in high-market as well as popular accessories? Why do numerous Chinese websites feature memories of producing and consuming Maoist propaganda art? Why do people get married in “Cultural Revolution style”? Why are the model works and revolutionary songs most prominent during the Cultural Revolution reproduced in never-ending varieties of pop, rock and jazz covers, even in karaoke bars, and on home videos? Why, in short, do people appreciate the products of a period in Chinese history known for its radical politics and the horrors it inflicted on so many?
In addressing these questions, Barbara Mittler will argue that the Cultural Revolution was an “impact event” that touched not only those who have written about it—intellectuals, the well-off, the middle class—but everyone down to peasants and workers. The Cultural Revolution was there for—or against—everyone. Taking her point of departure from three recent films, fictional and documentary: Bloody Snow by Peng Tao and My Cultural Revolution and Crime Summary by Xu Xing, Professor Mittler will illustrate how, in innumerable and even counterintuitive ways, the Cultural Revolution’s political hysterics reached even the most remote corners of a vast country. She will explore how the all-encompassing experience of living through the Cultural Revolution has influenced the making of cultural memory in and beyond China.
Wednesday, March 15, 2017
6pm – 9pm (Pacific Time)
Auditorium, Asian Centre, 1871 West Mall
Free & open to the public. Registration is now closed.
Events in Conjunction
Documentary Screening: Xu Xing’s Independent Documentary Film, Criminal Records 罪行摘要
Tuesday, March 14, 2017
2pm – 4pm (Pacific Time)
Room 221, West Mall Swing Space, 2175 West Mall
Research Seminar: A King’s two Bodies? Mao’s Death and his Legacy
Tuesday, March 14, 2017
4pm – 6pm (Pacific Time)
Room 604, UBC Asian Centre, 1871 West Mall
Prof. Dr. Barbara Mittler of University of Heidelberg
About the Speaker
Prof. Dr. Barbara Mittler is Professor of Chinese Studies at the Institute of Chinese Studies at the University of Heidelberg and Director of the Heidelberg Centre for Transcultural Studies—Asia and Europe in a Global Context. Her hundreds of publications include the books Dangerous Tunes: The Politics of Chinese Music in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the People’s Republic of China since 1949 (Harrassowitz, 1997); A Newspaper for China: Power, Identity and Change in Shanghai’s News Media (1872-1912) (Harvard, 2004); and A Continuous Revolution: Making Sense of Cultural Revolution Culture (Harvard, 2012), which won the 2013 John K. Fairbank Prize from the American Historical Association. She is a graduate of Heidelberg (Habilitation and Ph.D.), Oxford (B.A./M.A.), and Pearson College (I.B.) in Victoria, B.C.
About the Yip So Man Wat Memorial Lecture
The Yip So Man Wat Memorial Lectures are made possible by the generous support of Messrs. Alex and Chi Shum Watt in honour of their mother, the late Mrs. Wat, and her passion for Chinese literature and culture. Please visit the full lecture list here.