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Staging Chinese Revolution: Theater, Film, and the Afterlives of Propaganda
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About Staging Chinese Revolution: Theater, Film, And The
Product Description 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. Spanning the 1960s through the 2010s, Xiaomei Chen reads films, plays, operas, and television shows from an interdisciplinary and comparative perspective, demonstrating how, in a socialist state with "capitalist characteristics," propaganda performance turns biographies, memoirs, and war stories into mainstream ideological commodities, legitimizing the state and its right to rule. Analyzing propaganda performance also brings contradictions and inconsistencies to light that throw common understandings about propaganda's purpose into question. Chen focuses on revisionist histories that stage the lives of the "founding fathers" of the Communist Party, such as Chen Duxiu, Mao Zedong, and Deng Xiaoping, and the engaging mix of elite and ordinary characters that animate official propaganda in the private and public sphere. Taking the form of "personal" memories and representing star and youth culture and cyberspace, contemporary Chinese propaganda appeals through multiple perspectives, complicating relations among self, subject, agent, state building, and national identity. Chen treats Chinese performance as an extended form of political theater confronting critical issues of commemoration, nostalgia, state rituals, and contested history. It is through these reenactments that three generations of revolutionary leaders loom in extraordinary ways over Chinese politics and culture. Review Chen shows how propaganda produces narratives that hold the socialist state together. Not to be missed is the epilogue, in which Chen asks, 'Where are the founding mothers?' -- A. Huang ― CHOICE Sinologists and performance studies scholars alike will find this fascinating book a great resource for studying history, nationalism, and propaganda. ― Modern Drama Paves a genuinely new path, by both embarking on unfamiliar material and treating familiar works in fresh and exciting ways. Because of its commanding scope and unusual interdisciplinary approach, the book reaches beyond the field of performance scholarship to speak to larger questions in the study of modern and contemporary China more generally. ― China Review International Staging Chinese Revolution is a well-written and eloquent work. It has made an important contribution to our understanding of theatre and performance in socialist and post-socialist China. -- Ban Wang ― China Information By positioning theatrical propaganda at the dynamic intersection among party history, personal memories and popular culture, Chen convincingly presents multiple perspectives and complex relations among self, subject, agent, state building and national identity. Chen’s book is an important source for those interested in theatre studies, comparative literature and cultural and political studies. ― Theatre Research International Xiaomei Chen has broken new ground in her recent work on performance culture and the afterlives of propaganda in contemporary China. . . . The encyclopedic quality of the book, however, will reward engaging reading and rereading. Keep the volume by your side and use it as a key reference on contemporary Chinese propaganda, performance, and popular culture. -- Liang Luo ― Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews 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 po
