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三十．三十書系
複製的藝術：文革期間的文化生產及實踐
文化大革命不單破壞文化，也重構文化，其宣傳藝術通過欽定典範、複製樣板等方式，為毛時代的政治帶來了巨大能量，讓文革的理想和暴力走向極端。文革時期的中國，到處是一式一樣的複製品以及千篇一律的行為，任何人若要展示自己的獨特性，都必須背負極大的壓力。然而，許多參與文革者在服從權威的同時，卻又感受到一種難以名狀的自由。到底如何解釋這種現象？文革除了是一段佈滿傷痕的歷史，我們還可以從甚麼角度去理解那高度同質的世界中，各式各樣的文化經驗？
名人推薦
本書詳細分析文革時期不同種類的文藝作品與檔案文件，並深入訪談幾十位文藝工作者和平民百姓，以解釋這種在威權統治之下、個體卻自認為經歷著解放的現象。作者認為即使文革充滿肢體暴力，但文鬥才能觸及人民的靈魂；因此，解讀文藝活動及其背後邏輯，是理解文革的關鍵。
這本著作對文革時期的文化史做出了周全而細緻的研究，卓有貢獻。關於中國人民如何生活在火紅的革命時期，以及如何在其中感知與創作藝術的問題，彭麗君提供了嶄新的觀察與思考角度。—— 安德魯．瓊斯 Andrew F. Jones （加州大學柏克萊分校東亞語言及文化系教授）
本書是對文革研究領域的一項重要介入—彭麗君融合了新與舊的研究進路，推動我們重新思考中國十年文革期間文化生產的政治與歷程。—— 柯瑞佳 Rebecca Karl（紐約大學歷史系副教授）
彭麗君進行了細緻的研究，引領讀者進入文革的世界，包括各種複製、建構樣板與典範的藝術行為，它們構築了文化和政治領域，然後在社會景觀中被廣泛傳播，以至成為生活時尚。本書建基於無懈可擊的研究，帶來了令人振奮的新見解，絕對是理解中國文化大革命不容錯過的書。—— 杜登教 Michael Dutton（倫敦大學金匠學院政治學教授）
名人推薦
本書詳細分析文革時期不同種類的文藝作品與檔案文件，並深入訪談幾十位文藝工作者和平民百姓，以解釋這種在威權統治之下、個體卻自認為經歷著解放的現象。作者認為即使文革充滿肢體暴力，但文鬥才能觸及人民的靈魂；因此，解讀文藝活動及其背後邏輯，是理解文革的關鍵。
這本著作對文革時期的文化史做出了周全而細緻的研究，卓有貢獻。關於中國人民如何生活在火紅的革命時期，以及如何在其中感知與創作藝術的問題，彭麗君提供了嶄新的觀察與思考角度。—— 安德魯．瓊斯 Andrew F. Jones （加州大學柏克萊分校東亞語言及文化系教授）
本書是對文革研究領域的一項重要介入—彭麗君融合了新與舊的研究進路，推動我們重新思考中國十年文革期間文化生產的政治與歷程。—— 柯瑞佳 Rebecca Karl（紐約大學歷史系副教授）
彭麗君進行了細緻的研究，引領讀者進入文革的世界，包括各種複製、建構樣板與典範的藝術行為，它們構築了文化和政治領域，然後在社會景觀中被廣泛傳播，以至成為生活時尚。本書建基於無懈可擊的研究，帶來了令人振奮的新見解，絕對是理解中國文化大革命不容錯過的書。—— 杜登教 Michael Dutton（倫敦大學金匠學院政治學教授）
318 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 7, 2017
6 people are currently reading
237 people want to read
About the author
Laikwan Pang
12 books4 followersLaikwan Pang teaches cultural studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She is the author of Building a New Cinema in China: The Chinese Left-wing Cinema Movement, 1932-37 (Rowman and Littlefield, 2004) and Cultural Control and Globalisation in Asia: Copyright, Piracy and Cinema (RoutledgeCurzon, forthcoming).
(copied from the blurb at the back of Masculinities and Hong Kong Cinema)
(copied from the blurb at the back of Masculinities and Hong Kong Cinema)
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
August 8, 2018
'Totalitarismo' was first applied very critically to Fascsit Italy by Giovanni Amendola in 1923. By 1932, when Giovanni Gentile was ghost-writing the long-delayed proclamation of the Fascist dogma for Mussolini (the 'Dottrina del Fascismo'), he enthusiastically co-opted the notion. As with many political concepts of the XXth century, totalitarianism is the result of a peculiar cooperation between illiberal regimes and their political opponents: as attested by Brzezinski's post-war elaboration of the idea (in which 'monopoly on weapons' is one of the six defining traits of the totalitarian regime...), totalitarianism was crucial in defining negatively the boundaries of democratic liberalism.
In the particular case of Fascist Italy, it is now widely acknowledged that despite originating the term, Mussolini never came close to achieving his program of "Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state." Most visibly in the field of architecture, the regime in fact practiced some degree of pluralism, whether as strategy or compromise. In a sense, then, "totalitarianism" was a collaborative project of myth-making, in which the liberals' picture of their political 'Other' converged with the Fascist bombastic self-image.
With this said, however, though there exist a—probably irreducible—civil and popular component to most dictatorships, there is no doubting regimes did pursue the totalitarian dystopia, as attested by terms like "Gleichhaltung", or indeed "Yiyuanhua" in China. This term has been used to describe the process of centralisation and coordination of culture and politics in China—in other words, the very transition toward totalitarianism.
Totalitarian projects, however, remain invested in radical change: while totalitarianism evokes images of perfect coordination and deathly stasis, the Terror, the March on Rome or even Stalinism all conceived of unanimity and order as means to the end of revolution - of radical change. Mao and his movement wavered continuously between a glorification of the masses as sole source of knowledge and legitimacy, and the systematic attempt at shaping and educating them. This ambivalence of the Cultural Revolution can be read in different ways: as political wavering reflecting the ebbs and flows of leadership struggles, as the result of Mao's own uncertainties or instability, or as an inbuilt contradiction in the concept of revolution itself. All those factors probably played a role, but the book's approach focuses on the third one. To Pang Laikwan, teaching Cultural Studies in Hong Kong, yiyuanhua "implies both the integrity of the whole and the autonomy of the parts voluntarily submitting to a central spirit" (10). 'The Art of Cloning' sets out to emphasise the tension between those two aspects, bringing to the fore the constitutive contradictions of the Cultural Revolution, and showing how they both produced and occulted difference.
To the average Western eye, the most dramatic and striking aspect of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) is probably the overwhelming sense of uniformity, both in terms of the objects or images that reached our shores, and in terms of the homogeneous and unanimous "masses" who produced them. The system through which uniformity was achieved Laikwan terms "social mimesis", "a difficult process of individuals being coerced into the political order and individuals longing for identification with others in the midst of fierce competition and antagonism." (10).
Not only was this quest for conformity "bottom-up" as well as a feat of social engineering, offering short-lived promises of stability in a world in constant upheaval, but it was also ultimately self-defeating, because "imitation involves transformation ... As such the performative dimension of mimesis might sustain order, but it also make change possible" (13). Laikwan wonders: "By promoting copying, how much did Maoist society advocate conformity, and how much did alterity actually result from this?" (13).
The foremost model to be imitated the Chairman himself, although other characters real (mofan) or fictional (yangban) were developed. An anecdote reported by the author later in the book captures particularly vividly how those inbuilt contradictions could be revealed or even subvert themselves:
"The single legitimate poet was, of course, Mao himself, and various versions of his poetry collections were sold in the millions in China. Allegedly 2.1 billion single sheets of Mao's slogans and poetry were printed as posters during the Cultural Revolution, but there were only about thirty poems by Mao officially published in the 1964 version of Poetry of the Chairman Mao, which was far too few to satisfy the eager and huge readership. A volume of unpublished poems by Chairman Mao, containing a further twenty-four of his poems, was discovered in China in 1966; overnight, it came to be considered the most precious gift from Mao to his people, who not only read and recited the poems but organized workshops to study them together. Some estimate there were more than ten versions of the manuscript circulating in Peking University alone; they quickly reached the universities and institutions around the country in the form of handwritten manuscripts or mimeograph copies. In the beginning people had no doubt about the authenticity of these works, the romantic writing style of which was very much akin to that of Mao. It was quickly discovered that these poems were not written by Mao but by an intellectual youth, Chen Mingyuan, who wrote more than ten of them but was unaware of how his work came to be considered Mao's. (...)
These poems continued to circulate underground, and gained many sincere admirers among the readers of all over the country, even after their counterfeit status was discovered. (...)
But this case study also shows how propaganda broke down. As shown in the generic Maoist style of Chen Mingyuan's poems, he was conscious not to call attention to his unique poetic self but followed the narrowly accepted model. But when his poems were condemned as "faked," his own authorship was immediately unveiled, condemned, and aggrandized. (...). The system collapsed when the tacit copying, as public secret, was disclosed, which also immediately displayed the systematic differentiation between writing-like-Mao and writing-as-Mao." (71-72)
Here, then, we see how cultural production through imitation could expose its own contradiction, but the same was true of cultural reception. Laikwan writes "In its own contradictory way, this highly controlled propaganda was not a top-down mechanism, but we see how the people traveled around and struggled to learn and create the propaganda, making it open-ended, not a cessation of all mental work" (15). Here is a delightful example (so delightful in form and content, as to beggar belief) of the cunning of the market, which she quotes from the recollections of Han Shaogong:
"Mao badges were extremely popular at one time, and new designs were widely pursued immediately after they were released. One big porcelain badge could be exchanged with five or six small aluminium badges. One alloy-steel bowl-sized badge can be traded for three or four porcelain or bamboo badges. But after a while, the badge heat subsided, and boys began to be interested in military items. As a result, an 80-percent new army hat was worth more than ten badges, and one needed two or three stamp books to buy a four-pocket military uniform. A while after, Shanghai-made Huili sneakers became the fashion, particularly those in white color, which could be traded in for a transistor radio plus a pair of military pants, or one double-sided ping-pong bat with a few machine gun bullets." (212)
After a short introduction, the next two chapters explore the aesthetics of the artistic and literary production during the Cultural Revolution, and their reception and circulation as well as the role they played in the Maoist system. The third chapter discusses the notion of model, and how it simultaneously attempted to homogenise Chinese society, yet also produced independent solidarity and undermined its own message. Chapter four studies one of those models in some details, the generally female "barefoot doctor", manifested in literature, visual propaganda and film or theatre, with the Party's own contradictory demands on women. Chapter five examines how the yanbangxi, the model opera produced by the state and given a virtual monopoly during the revolution, were transplanted and adapted in China's many provinces, focusing on Guangdong. Chapter six is another case-study concerned with the importation of ballet and its derived products, as well as the officials' struggle to keep at bay its erotic undertones.Chapter seven concern itself with the "Mao cult" and Mao's own wavering rejection of it, showing how the proliferation of his image ultimately trivialized both his authority and doctrine. Chapter eight traces the origin of the ghost trope to describe one of the Cultural Revolution's most detested internal enemies, the (Maoist) intellectual.
Laikwan has selected a very interesting angle for her book, and in our times when spectacular (if superficial) individuality is the key requirement for social and economic success, an investigation of conformity, with its pleasures and promises as well as its dangers, sounded very enticing. What she provides however went beyond my expectation, as she emphasise how the mechanisms the State mobilised to enforce or at least encourage this conformity, ultimately undermined themselves.
The liberal narrative, with its story of self-willed and divinely autonomous individuals, has long been chasing its own tail, and we might be witnessing a shift in conceptions of identity, as some—for better or worse—recognise that by its very nature it can only be produced collectively. Laikwan offers us a reminder that social and cultural engineering has pitfalls of its own, not only because it can sabotage its own utopia but also because the collective is only ever a collection of individuals.
In hindsight, the Cultural Revolution was not devouring its children: for once, it were the children devouring the Revolution.
The work is not wholly free from the strictures of cultural studies: there is the occasional indulgence in value-added jargon (i.e. "there is a strong epistemological desire to come up with an accurate figure for the death toll of the Cultural Revolution", p. 22) and the Laikwan often sacrifies general context to picturesque anecdotes and critical theory name-dropping. While the later sometimes feels extraneous and cosmetic, it is largely limited to the first few chapters setting up her theoretical frame-work, which is otherwise strong, original and very clear. The picturesque anecdotes, on the other hand, are at the very least half the fun of the book! Her focus on the peculiar and particular at the expense of the quantitative or typical has left me longing for a more straightforward history of the period, yet so many of her quotes and examples are striking and fascinating, revealing of (and revelling in) the kafkaian and paradoxical character of Chinese daily life in those times.
Despite being clearly revisionist in its scope, the book does not engage in endless squabbles with the historiographic establishment: in fact, it does a great job at putting forward its argument in 'positive' form, arguing through examples and theories, rather than unpicking the a nebulous 'accepted' narrative and conducting academic feuds. Instead of deploring the monolithic view of the period in existing scholarship, she acknowledges the need to emphasise the crimes and dismal consequences of the Cultural Revolution, and deplores the PRC's institutionalised amnesia.
Though it might be handy to have at least some grasp of Chinese history (I was glad I'd read a couple of books on the subject before starting this one) and the book would probably be better appreciated still by someone more familiar than me with the Cultural Revolution, the book I think can be understood and appreciated without much knowledge of cultural studies or contemporary theory. I am certain I will return to it, at least as much for its concepts as for its stories.
In the particular case of Fascist Italy, it is now widely acknowledged that despite originating the term, Mussolini never came close to achieving his program of "Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state." Most visibly in the field of architecture, the regime in fact practiced some degree of pluralism, whether as strategy or compromise. In a sense, then, "totalitarianism" was a collaborative project of myth-making, in which the liberals' picture of their political 'Other' converged with the Fascist bombastic self-image.
With this said, however, though there exist a—probably irreducible—civil and popular component to most dictatorships, there is no doubting regimes did pursue the totalitarian dystopia, as attested by terms like "Gleichhaltung", or indeed "Yiyuanhua" in China. This term has been used to describe the process of centralisation and coordination of culture and politics in China—in other words, the very transition toward totalitarianism.
Totalitarian projects, however, remain invested in radical change: while totalitarianism evokes images of perfect coordination and deathly stasis, the Terror, the March on Rome or even Stalinism all conceived of unanimity and order as means to the end of revolution - of radical change. Mao and his movement wavered continuously between a glorification of the masses as sole source of knowledge and legitimacy, and the systematic attempt at shaping and educating them. This ambivalence of the Cultural Revolution can be read in different ways: as political wavering reflecting the ebbs and flows of leadership struggles, as the result of Mao's own uncertainties or instability, or as an inbuilt contradiction in the concept of revolution itself. All those factors probably played a role, but the book's approach focuses on the third one. To Pang Laikwan, teaching Cultural Studies in Hong Kong, yiyuanhua "implies both the integrity of the whole and the autonomy of the parts voluntarily submitting to a central spirit" (10). 'The Art of Cloning' sets out to emphasise the tension between those two aspects, bringing to the fore the constitutive contradictions of the Cultural Revolution, and showing how they both produced and occulted difference.
To the average Western eye, the most dramatic and striking aspect of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) is probably the overwhelming sense of uniformity, both in terms of the objects or images that reached our shores, and in terms of the homogeneous and unanimous "masses" who produced them. The system through which uniformity was achieved Laikwan terms "social mimesis", "a difficult process of individuals being coerced into the political order and individuals longing for identification with others in the midst of fierce competition and antagonism." (10).
Not only was this quest for conformity "bottom-up" as well as a feat of social engineering, offering short-lived promises of stability in a world in constant upheaval, but it was also ultimately self-defeating, because "imitation involves transformation ... As such the performative dimension of mimesis might sustain order, but it also make change possible" (13). Laikwan wonders: "By promoting copying, how much did Maoist society advocate conformity, and how much did alterity actually result from this?" (13).
The foremost model to be imitated the Chairman himself, although other characters real (mofan) or fictional (yangban) were developed. An anecdote reported by the author later in the book captures particularly vividly how those inbuilt contradictions could be revealed or even subvert themselves:
"The single legitimate poet was, of course, Mao himself, and various versions of his poetry collections were sold in the millions in China. Allegedly 2.1 billion single sheets of Mao's slogans and poetry were printed as posters during the Cultural Revolution, but there were only about thirty poems by Mao officially published in the 1964 version of Poetry of the Chairman Mao, which was far too few to satisfy the eager and huge readership. A volume of unpublished poems by Chairman Mao, containing a further twenty-four of his poems, was discovered in China in 1966; overnight, it came to be considered the most precious gift from Mao to his people, who not only read and recited the poems but organized workshops to study them together. Some estimate there were more than ten versions of the manuscript circulating in Peking University alone; they quickly reached the universities and institutions around the country in the form of handwritten manuscripts or mimeograph copies. In the beginning people had no doubt about the authenticity of these works, the romantic writing style of which was very much akin to that of Mao. It was quickly discovered that these poems were not written by Mao but by an intellectual youth, Chen Mingyuan, who wrote more than ten of them but was unaware of how his work came to be considered Mao's. (...)
These poems continued to circulate underground, and gained many sincere admirers among the readers of all over the country, even after their counterfeit status was discovered. (...)
But this case study also shows how propaganda broke down. As shown in the generic Maoist style of Chen Mingyuan's poems, he was conscious not to call attention to his unique poetic self but followed the narrowly accepted model. But when his poems were condemned as "faked," his own authorship was immediately unveiled, condemned, and aggrandized. (...). The system collapsed when the tacit copying, as public secret, was disclosed, which also immediately displayed the systematic differentiation between writing-like-Mao and writing-as-Mao." (71-72)
Here, then, we see how cultural production through imitation could expose its own contradiction, but the same was true of cultural reception. Laikwan writes "In its own contradictory way, this highly controlled propaganda was not a top-down mechanism, but we see how the people traveled around and struggled to learn and create the propaganda, making it open-ended, not a cessation of all mental work" (15). Here is a delightful example (so delightful in form and content, as to beggar belief) of the cunning of the market, which she quotes from the recollections of Han Shaogong:
"Mao badges were extremely popular at one time, and new designs were widely pursued immediately after they were released. One big porcelain badge could be exchanged with five or six small aluminium badges. One alloy-steel bowl-sized badge can be traded for three or four porcelain or bamboo badges. But after a while, the badge heat subsided, and boys began to be interested in military items. As a result, an 80-percent new army hat was worth more than ten badges, and one needed two or three stamp books to buy a four-pocket military uniform. A while after, Shanghai-made Huili sneakers became the fashion, particularly those in white color, which could be traded in for a transistor radio plus a pair of military pants, or one double-sided ping-pong bat with a few machine gun bullets." (212)
After a short introduction, the next two chapters explore the aesthetics of the artistic and literary production during the Cultural Revolution, and their reception and circulation as well as the role they played in the Maoist system. The third chapter discusses the notion of model, and how it simultaneously attempted to homogenise Chinese society, yet also produced independent solidarity and undermined its own message. Chapter four studies one of those models in some details, the generally female "barefoot doctor", manifested in literature, visual propaganda and film or theatre, with the Party's own contradictory demands on women. Chapter five examines how the yanbangxi, the model opera produced by the state and given a virtual monopoly during the revolution, were transplanted and adapted in China's many provinces, focusing on Guangdong. Chapter six is another case-study concerned with the importation of ballet and its derived products, as well as the officials' struggle to keep at bay its erotic undertones.Chapter seven concern itself with the "Mao cult" and Mao's own wavering rejection of it, showing how the proliferation of his image ultimately trivialized both his authority and doctrine. Chapter eight traces the origin of the ghost trope to describe one of the Cultural Revolution's most detested internal enemies, the (Maoist) intellectual.
Laikwan has selected a very interesting angle for her book, and in our times when spectacular (if superficial) individuality is the key requirement for social and economic success, an investigation of conformity, with its pleasures and promises as well as its dangers, sounded very enticing. What she provides however went beyond my expectation, as she emphasise how the mechanisms the State mobilised to enforce or at least encourage this conformity, ultimately undermined themselves.
The liberal narrative, with its story of self-willed and divinely autonomous individuals, has long been chasing its own tail, and we might be witnessing a shift in conceptions of identity, as some—for better or worse—recognise that by its very nature it can only be produced collectively. Laikwan offers us a reminder that social and cultural engineering has pitfalls of its own, not only because it can sabotage its own utopia but also because the collective is only ever a collection of individuals.
In hindsight, the Cultural Revolution was not devouring its children: for once, it were the children devouring the Revolution.
The work is not wholly free from the strictures of cultural studies: there is the occasional indulgence in value-added jargon (i.e. "there is a strong epistemological desire to come up with an accurate figure for the death toll of the Cultural Revolution", p. 22) and the Laikwan often sacrifies general context to picturesque anecdotes and critical theory name-dropping. While the later sometimes feels extraneous and cosmetic, it is largely limited to the first few chapters setting up her theoretical frame-work, which is otherwise strong, original and very clear. The picturesque anecdotes, on the other hand, are at the very least half the fun of the book! Her focus on the peculiar and particular at the expense of the quantitative or typical has left me longing for a more straightforward history of the period, yet so many of her quotes and examples are striking and fascinating, revealing of (and revelling in) the kafkaian and paradoxical character of Chinese daily life in those times.
Despite being clearly revisionist in its scope, the book does not engage in endless squabbles with the historiographic establishment: in fact, it does a great job at putting forward its argument in 'positive' form, arguing through examples and theories, rather than unpicking the a nebulous 'accepted' narrative and conducting academic feuds. Instead of deploring the monolithic view of the period in existing scholarship, she acknowledges the need to emphasise the crimes and dismal consequences of the Cultural Revolution, and deplores the PRC's institutionalised amnesia.
Though it might be handy to have at least some grasp of Chinese history (I was glad I'd read a couple of books on the subject before starting this one) and the book would probably be better appreciated still by someone more familiar than me with the Cultural Revolution, the book I think can be understood and appreciated without much knowledge of cultural studies or contemporary theory. I am certain I will return to it, at least as much for its concepts as for its stories.
April 17, 2017
Brilliant book about the interaction of order and chaos during the cultural revolution. The author analyzes the impossibility of the government's attempt to impose on a society settled patterns of revolutionary identity. She describes how, while copying such patterns, people developed various understandings of these which, eventually, emptied them of meaning. She also describes how the initial intent of eliminating the social differences within society by reversing social roles resulted in destroying the institutions which sustained social order and thus any sort of social security. People reacted to this by emotionally distancing themselves from the revolution.
Overall a very interesting analysis on how an attempt to direct a revolution from above could not work and on how extreme politicization could not but depoliticize the society.
Overall a very interesting analysis on how an attempt to direct a revolution from above could not work and on how extreme politicization could not but depoliticize the society.
January 16, 2024
Very impressive psychoanalytic/pop theory reading of the actual culture thrown up by the Cultural Revolution - nuanced and sophisticated, but at no point shying away from that movement's immense cruelty.
November 4, 2017
Top-drawer scholarship. A perpetual flow of insightful analysis of the aesthetics and politics of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, notable for Pang's capacity to transcend the ossified perspective presented to Western readers of exclusively the horrors visited upon the elite during this decade. If you have an open mind or are open to having an open mind, I recommend reading this perspective shifting work.
March 4, 2021
Love how Pang approaches this, a fine line between endorsement and condemnation, but instead looking at how the revolutionary culture of a new Chinese nation had the seeds to reinvent their culture by making it more participatory and democratic, yet also showing how Party politics and mass movements could be derailed and falter. A lot of really great chapters, I particularly enjoyed the chapter on Opera, and the differences between Cantonese and Mandarin opera styles, and the difficulties of translating and transposing revolutionary ideas along with regional difference.
"The performance culture was so important to the Cultural Revolution because the revolutionary spirit needed to be continuously performed. The person who performed this spirit would always be caught between being themselves and being a tool of the spirit"
Contrasting the frankly Orientalist idea of homogeneity and brainwashing in Communist China, Pang instead illustrates the way that new habits and customs allowed Chinese people to participate in popular culture in unprecedented ways. Love it
"The performance culture was so important to the Cultural Revolution because the revolutionary spirit needed to be continuously performed. The person who performed this spirit would always be caught between being themselves and being a tool of the spirit"
Contrasting the frankly Orientalist idea of homogeneity and brainwashing in Communist China, Pang instead illustrates the way that new habits and customs allowed Chinese people to participate in popular culture in unprecedented ways. Love it
September 24, 2020
How does the "propaganda" culture-work actually work during the Maoist Proletariat Cultural Revolution?? What is actually the cultural logic behind it? Full of fantastic analysis and penetrating insights! First-rate critical scholarship that thinks about history face-to-face.
December 26, 2020
这本书确实重塑了我对文革固有的瘠薄的认识——群众在文革的文化活动中有着比想象中更多的参与和塑造能力，这也在某些方面说明自上而下的对文化的完全控制是不可能的。可悲的是在今时今日加深对文革的理解可能是一种必须，文革以来固有的制度性缺陷在现在依旧存在，而缺乏反思，压制文革重演的力量现今也摇摇欲坠。
December 29, 2024
La tesis es muy buena, sobre todo en el tercer capítulo donde se analiza la relación entre arte y copia. Lamentablamente, la conclusión es media fome.
April 10, 2023
Love this book. Super well written and argued. Very engaging and radical.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews