Dr. Qiliang He earned PhD degree in modern Chinese history at the University of Minnesota in 2006. He authors four monographs on twentieth-century China and translates three books about Chinese history.
Feminism, Women’s Agency, and Communication in Early Twentieth-Century China focuses on a sensati... more Feminism, Women’s Agency, and Communication in Early Twentieth-Century China focuses on a sensational elopement in the Yangzi Delta in the late 1920s to explore how middle- and lower-class members of society gained access to and appropriated otherwise alien and abstract enlightenment theories and idioms about love, marriage, and family. Via a network of communications that connected people of differing socioeconomic and educational backgrounds, non-elite women were empowered to display their new womanhood and thereby exercise their self-activating agency to mount resistance to China’s patriarchal system. Qiliang He’s text also investigates the proliferation of anti-feminist conservatisms in legal practice, scholarly discourses, media, and popular culture in the early Nanjing Decade (1927-1937). Utilizing a framework of interdisciplinary scholarship, this book traverses various fields such as legal history, women’s history, popular culture/media studies, and literary studies to explore urban discourse and communication in 1920s China.
In Gilded Voices: Economics, Politics, and Storytelling in the Yangzi Delta since 1949, Qiliang H... more In Gilded Voices: Economics, Politics, and Storytelling in the Yangzi Delta since 1949, Qiliang He pieces together published, archival, and oral history sources to explore the role of the cultural market in mediating between the state and artists in the PRC era. By focusing on pingtan, a storytelling art using the Suzhou dialect, the book documents both the state’s efforts to police artists and their repertoire and storytellers’ collaboration with, as well as resistance to, state supervision and intervention. The book thereby challenges long-held scholarly assumptions about the Chinese Communist Party’s success in politicizing popular culture, patronizing artists, abolishing the cultural market, and enforcing rigid censorship in Mao’s times.
Chen Yun (1905 1995), the economic czar of t of China (PRC), was the fifth-ranking member of the ... more Chen Yun (1905 1995), the economic czar of t of China (PRC), was the fifth-ranking member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) between 1954 and 1962. Despite his prestige and accomplishments, Chen has, as David Bachman notes, received surprisingly little attention in English-language scholarship. The limited research about Chen Yun chiefly concentrates on his political career and economic theories and practices. Little, if any, scholarly attention has been
This chapter centers on the coverage of the Huang–Lu elopement by various periodicals across the ... more This chapter centers on the coverage of the Huang–Lu elopement by various periodicals across the Yangzi Delta as a social drama to cater to the tastes of their readership. It highlights complex interactions among the media, the protagonists of the case, and the readers. Journalists worked hard to cast Huang Huiru variously as a “new woman” fighting for marital freedom, a femme fatale whose sexual desire caused the man’s legal trouble, or a defenseless girl falling prey to a male sexual offender. Journalists gained inspirations from both foreign films and China’s classical fiction to imagine and represent the love affair. The protagonists of the elopement, Huang and Lu, obtained, displayed, and changed their personal identities in accordance with the images journalists gave them in the press and altered the course of their lives accordingly.
In Gilded Voices, Qiliang He focuses on pingtan, a storytelling art using the Suzhou dialect, to ... more In Gilded Voices, Qiliang He focuses on pingtan, a storytelling art using the Suzhou dialect, to explore the role of the cultural market in mediating between the state and artists in the PRC era.
ABSTRACT This article takes the political campaign against The life of Wu Xun (Wu Xun zhuan, 1950... more ABSTRACT This article takes the political campaign against The life of Wu Xun (Wu Xun zhuan, 1950), launched by Mao Zedong in 1951, as a point of departure to explore the intertwining relationship between cinema and the new historiography in post-1949 China. While the criticisms of The life of Wu Xun highlighted the central role of peasant warfare in imperial Chinese history and thereby resulted in the growing popularity of the class view in Chinese historiography, the making of two other films set in the Qing dynasty, Song Jingshi (1955) and Lin Zexu (1959), attested to a tension between two historiographical trends in Mao’s China: the class view and historicism. This article argues that the entanglement of historians and non-historians, including filmmakers, allowed for the making of a history-centred public space of communication for both historians and laypersons alike to resort to China’s past to make sense of the present and even attack Mao. Second, such a mode of history-qua-political discussion and polemic paved the way for the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution. In the mid-1960s, the tension between two historiographical trends would finally lead to the purge of historical researchers, filmmakers, writers and dramatists during the Cultural Revolution.
The love affair provides a lens to examine the rise of an urban network of communication that fea... more The love affair provides a lens to examine the rise of an urban network of communication that featured both newspaper and non-newspaper media in the late 1920s. In this period, a new trend of journalism set in—namely, the concentration of capital and cut-throat competition among high-budget daily newspapers. In order to survive and thrive, second-tier newspapers resorted to high-profile social news, such as the Huang–Lu affair, to both reap profits and impart behavioral codes. Beyond the newspaper media, a concerted effort by dramatists, publishers, pop singers, folklorists, street artists, and gramophone record companies to represent the case testifies to the flowering of web of communication that linked consumers of various social and economic backgrounds. In this network, consumers, especially low-brow ones, vernacularized May-Fourth feminist and sexological notions to arrive at their understandings of the elopement and to show their worthiness as members of modern society.
Abstract: This article focuses on the extravagant funeral procession of Sheng Xuanhuai (1844–1916... more Abstract: This article focuses on the extravagant funeral procession of Sheng Xuanhuai (1844–1916) in November 1917. This mile-long procession attracted over a million spectators and, thereby, lent the residents and sojourners in Shanghai of the day a unique visual sensibility of the modern urban milieu. Various parties to the funeral procession—namely the colonial authorities, the bereaved family, businessmen, and lower-class spectators—developed various tactics to manipulate the spectacle of the procession for political control, commercial gains, and visual pleasure. The author argues that the spectacularization of daily life, as exemplified by the 1917 funeral procession, and a collective will to look and to be looked at in early twentieth-century China, contributed to binding together otherwise segregated people, thus restructuring interpersonal relationships in the modernized city of Shanghai.
Feminism, Women’s Agency, and Communication in Early Twentieth-Century China focuses on a sensati... more Feminism, Women’s Agency, and Communication in Early Twentieth-Century China focuses on a sensational elopement in the Yangzi Delta in the late 1920s to explore how middle- and lower-class members of society gained access to and appropriated otherwise alien and abstract enlightenment theories and idioms about love, marriage, and family. Via a network of communications that connected people of differing socioeconomic and educational backgrounds, non-elite women were empowered to display their new womanhood and thereby exercise their self-activating agency to mount resistance to China’s patriarchal system. Qiliang He’s text also investigates the proliferation of anti-feminist conservatisms in legal practice, scholarly discourses, media, and popular culture in the early Nanjing Decade (1927-1937). Utilizing a framework of interdisciplinary scholarship, this book traverses various fields such as legal history, women’s history, popular culture/media studies, and literary studies to explore urban discourse and communication in 1920s China.
In Gilded Voices: Economics, Politics, and Storytelling in the Yangzi Delta since 1949, Qiliang H... more In Gilded Voices: Economics, Politics, and Storytelling in the Yangzi Delta since 1949, Qiliang He pieces together published, archival, and oral history sources to explore the role of the cultural market in mediating between the state and artists in the PRC era. By focusing on pingtan, a storytelling art using the Suzhou dialect, the book documents both the state’s efforts to police artists and their repertoire and storytellers’ collaboration with, as well as resistance to, state supervision and intervention. The book thereby challenges long-held scholarly assumptions about the Chinese Communist Party’s success in politicizing popular culture, patronizing artists, abolishing the cultural market, and enforcing rigid censorship in Mao’s times.
Chen Yun (1905 1995), the economic czar of t of China (PRC), was the fifth-ranking member of the ... more Chen Yun (1905 1995), the economic czar of t of China (PRC), was the fifth-ranking member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) between 1954 and 1962. Despite his prestige and accomplishments, Chen has, as David Bachman notes, received surprisingly little attention in English-language scholarship. The limited research about Chen Yun chiefly concentrates on his political career and economic theories and practices. Little, if any, scholarly attention has been
This chapter centers on the coverage of the Huang–Lu elopement by various periodicals across the ... more This chapter centers on the coverage of the Huang–Lu elopement by various periodicals across the Yangzi Delta as a social drama to cater to the tastes of their readership. It highlights complex interactions among the media, the protagonists of the case, and the readers. Journalists worked hard to cast Huang Huiru variously as a “new woman” fighting for marital freedom, a femme fatale whose sexual desire caused the man’s legal trouble, or a defenseless girl falling prey to a male sexual offender. Journalists gained inspirations from both foreign films and China’s classical fiction to imagine and represent the love affair. The protagonists of the elopement, Huang and Lu, obtained, displayed, and changed their personal identities in accordance with the images journalists gave them in the press and altered the course of their lives accordingly.
In Gilded Voices, Qiliang He focuses on pingtan, a storytelling art using the Suzhou dialect, to ... more In Gilded Voices, Qiliang He focuses on pingtan, a storytelling art using the Suzhou dialect, to explore the role of the cultural market in mediating between the state and artists in the PRC era.
ABSTRACT This article takes the political campaign against The life of Wu Xun (Wu Xun zhuan, 1950... more ABSTRACT This article takes the political campaign against The life of Wu Xun (Wu Xun zhuan, 1950), launched by Mao Zedong in 1951, as a point of departure to explore the intertwining relationship between cinema and the new historiography in post-1949 China. While the criticisms of The life of Wu Xun highlighted the central role of peasant warfare in imperial Chinese history and thereby resulted in the growing popularity of the class view in Chinese historiography, the making of two other films set in the Qing dynasty, Song Jingshi (1955) and Lin Zexu (1959), attested to a tension between two historiographical trends in Mao’s China: the class view and historicism. This article argues that the entanglement of historians and non-historians, including filmmakers, allowed for the making of a history-centred public space of communication for both historians and laypersons alike to resort to China’s past to make sense of the present and even attack Mao. Second, such a mode of history-qua-political discussion and polemic paved the way for the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution. In the mid-1960s, the tension between two historiographical trends would finally lead to the purge of historical researchers, filmmakers, writers and dramatists during the Cultural Revolution.
The love affair provides a lens to examine the rise of an urban network of communication that fea... more The love affair provides a lens to examine the rise of an urban network of communication that featured both newspaper and non-newspaper media in the late 1920s. In this period, a new trend of journalism set in—namely, the concentration of capital and cut-throat competition among high-budget daily newspapers. In order to survive and thrive, second-tier newspapers resorted to high-profile social news, such as the Huang–Lu affair, to both reap profits and impart behavioral codes. Beyond the newspaper media, a concerted effort by dramatists, publishers, pop singers, folklorists, street artists, and gramophone record companies to represent the case testifies to the flowering of web of communication that linked consumers of various social and economic backgrounds. In this network, consumers, especially low-brow ones, vernacularized May-Fourth feminist and sexological notions to arrive at their understandings of the elopement and to show their worthiness as members of modern society.
Abstract: This article focuses on the extravagant funeral procession of Sheng Xuanhuai (1844–1916... more Abstract: This article focuses on the extravagant funeral procession of Sheng Xuanhuai (1844–1916) in November 1917. This mile-long procession attracted over a million spectators and, thereby, lent the residents and sojourners in Shanghai of the day a unique visual sensibility of the modern urban milieu. Various parties to the funeral procession—namely the colonial authorities, the bereaved family, businessmen, and lower-class spectators—developed various tactics to manipulate the spectacle of the procession for political control, commercial gains, and visual pleasure. The author argues that the spectacularization of daily life, as exemplified by the 1917 funeral procession, and a collective will to look and to be looked at in early twentieth-century China, contributed to binding together otherwise segregated people, thus restructuring interpersonal relationships in the modernized city of Shanghai.
Museums in China: The Politics of Representation after Mao, by Marzia Varutti. Woodbridge: The Bo... more Museums in China: The Politics of Representation after Mao, by Marzia Varutti. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2014. xii + 190 pp. £60.00 (hardcover).In recent years, China has experienced rapid changes to its cultural infrastructure, reflected by the aggressive growth of its museums, which have become symbols of its global cultural and economic prominence. Government, business enterprises, universities and individuals at the national, provincial and local levels now operate over 3,000 museums. Marking a new chapter in the history of global museum development, China is nearing the goal of bringing the per capita number of its museums up to the level of developed countries. Jeffrey Johnson of Columbia University calls this phenomenon the "museumification" of China, and pinpoints a nationwide craze for mass construction of new museums.Why does China embrace museums with such enthusiasm and boost their proliferation at such an unprecedented rate? How have sociopolitical changes inChina influenced the reception and operation of museums and affected the presentation and interpretation of museum objects? These questions have received increased attention from Western scholars. Marzia Varutti's book, developed from her doctoral dissertation (University of Geneva, 2008) and fieldtrips to China, is the latest addition to the current scholarship. It provides a critical new perspective by discussing the development of Chinese museums in historical and sociopolitical contexts, no longer centered on old Communist ideology but increasingly on a new cultural nationalism. Interestingly, several other books have just been published to tell the stories of Chinese museums, their architecture, collections and displays. These include Kirk Denton's Exhibiting the Past: Historical Memory and the Politics of Museums in Post-Socialist China (2013) and Tracey Lus Museums in China: Power, Politics, and Identities (2014). Each indicates that museums now play a significant role in developing the image and identity of the Chinese nation by enhancing public appreciation of its history, civilization and cultural diversity.Museums in China preserve historical memory and cultural heritage, but function as "symbols of modernity" as well. Varutti examines the linkage between museums and the nation from historical and contemporary perspectives. Acting as indexes of the antiquity and glory of a civilization, museum objects are displayed as symbols of the Chinese nation, and museum narratives disseminate discourses on the nation's longevity, continuity and unity. What makes the case of China special is government control of museum discourse in order to uphold the legitimacy of the Communist Party as the keeper of Chinese cultural, historical, political and moral heritage (p. 159).The book's ten chapters can be divided roughly into two parts. Chapters 1 to 4 briefly introduce basic concepts about China's cultural heritage, the history of its museums and their collections, and the roles of museum "actors" including administrators, curators, donors and audiences. The relationship between museum objects and national identity is introduced as key to understanding the greater visibility of museums in contemporary China. The remaining chapters further elaborate ideas about "the nation" as conveyed by museum objects and narratives. Chapter 5 reveals that Chinese national identity has often been represented through the depth of its history and the breadth of its civic projects and ethnic composition. …
This paper examines the resistance ofpingtanstorytellers to Communist political domination and ec... more This paper examines the resistance ofpingtanstorytellers to Communist political domination and economic exploitation on the eve of the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). In the early and mid-1960s, storytellers rarely mounted resistance through direct confrontations with the political authorities, but often in ‘everyday forms’ such as by libelling cadres, asking for sick-leave, refusing to conform to the dress code during performances, and threatening to withdraw from troupes. In order to vent their disappointment at the economic hardships following the Great Leap Forward (1958–1961), storytellers resorted to the flexible ways of narrating and performing pingtan stories to manipulate the storylines and characterizations in their stage performances. Hence storytellers engaged in counter-propaganda by telling ribald jokes and distorting stories that were originally designed to praise Communist revolutions. This investigation of the resistance of storytellers, both on and off stage, is i...
This article focuses on Zhao Dan’s (1915–1980) career in film after 1949 to investigate a specifi... more This article focuses on Zhao Dan’s (1915–1980) career in film after 1949 to investigate a specific type of stardom unique to Mao Zedong’s China (1949–1976). We argue that this new stardom was similar to what conventionally defines stardom, but with an added political dimension: Zhao Dan’s acquisition of high political standing in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). To arrive at a fuller understanding of the state–artist relationship in the PRC, this article challenges the paradigm of accommodation and resistance between the tyrannical state and subordinated artists, which presupposes a subjectivity or selfhood on the part of artists that pre-existed and was maintained against the intrusive hegemonic ideologies of the state. Instead, we underscore that the making of Zhao Dan’s subjectivity in the PRC—his subjectivity-in-stardom in this case—was a dynamic process, a “becoming.” Zhao Dan’s checkered career indicates that he not only acclimated himself to the ever-changing political a...
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