14183

SoSe 19: Conflicting Memories in China: Texts, Images, and Institutions

Emily Mae Graf

Information for students

This course is designed for students of the Masterstudiengang Chinastudien but is open to all students with Chinese language skills interested in the topic of memory studies in the PRC and Taiwan. The class will be held in English, the final coursework can be submitted in English or German. close

Comments

This course aims at improving students’ reading skills of Chinese texts, while at the same time training them in analytical approaches to visual materials and institutional structures. By analyzing texts, images, and institutions alike, the class helps them gain insights into various conflicting processes of memory-making in the PRC and Taiwan. The class raises the following research questions: How are historical figures (e.g. politicians, writers, artists, etc.) or historical periods and events remembered by society (e.g. the May Fourth Movement ???? or the Cultural Revolution ????? on the Mainland – or the period of Japanese rule ???? or the 228 Incident ????? on Taiwan)? How do memorial sites and museums in particular contribute to them entering the collective cultural memory of a society? How does their display change over time? And how can their display be read with and against the grain? The class is separated in three parts: I) Politics and Culture, II) Remembering, III) Forgetting. The three parts of the class are interspersed by three “image sessions”, in which students present images and their reading of them in short presentations (5-10 min each). Students are encouraged to engage with one memorial site of their choosing in their final coursework. In Part One, we investigate the relationship between culture and politics in general. We reflect on how it is often demanded that they be strictly separated and independent. The case of Mao Zedong’s “Speech at the Yan’an Forum of Literature and Art ????????????” (1942) or his appraisal of Lu Xun as a “national hero ????” on the “cultural front ??????” and other speeches of political consecration, reveal how the political and cultural were, however, deeply intertwined in the case of the PRC. Further texts by Lu Xun’s son Zhou Haiying and Lu Xun’s contemporary Mao Dun reveal how Mao Zedong and Lu Xun became symbolically, visually and, institutionally entangled when being commemorated in Chinese society. Furthermore, the well-known clash between literary scholar Leo Ou-fan Lee and researchers of the Beijing Lu Xun Museum over the meaning of certain art works which Lu Xun had on display in his former residence, reveals the power of iconic images and spaces in the process of shaping (un)ambiguous readings and memories. Part Two looks at specific processes of memory-making. Revisiting the seminal texts by Aleida Assmann on Erinnerungsräume (spaces of commemoration), we investigate the Museum of the Chinese Revolution ???????, Mao Zedong’s Memorial Hall ?????? and the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall ?????? to ask how memory, and what kind of memory, is produced in these spaces. This section also introduces crucial actors in the field of cultural politics: Wang Yeqiu ???, for example, was not only responsible for establishing the Museum of the Chinese Revolution, but also involved in the establishment of the museums dedicated to Lu Xun. Sinologist Kirk Denton’s reflections on a range of museum genres will furthermore enquire how representative spaces of “culture”, “history”, and “politics” differ and to which extent they apply similar tools and visual grammars. In Part Three, we will investigate what is not or only reluctantly remembered in the museum landscape of the PRC and Taiwan. Here, again, one historic event and one historic figure will be at the center of our inquiry. For example: While Lu Xun and the Communist Revolution were to be commemorated through major state-owned museums, Lu Xun’s brother Zhou Zuoren ???, attacked as a “traitor of the nation ??” for collaborating with the Japanese and the historical period of the Cultural Revolution fell into (institutional) oblivion, or better erased from institutional memory. The writer Ba Jin ?? first called for a Museum of the Cultural Revolution to be established in China in the early 1980s, however this museum continues to face challenges in surviving in the cultural policies of the PRC today. Closely investigating specific processes of remembering and forgetting based on the students’ interests and choices, this class provides insights into how conflicting memories in China and Taiwan are continuously being shaped, negotiated and reconfigured. close

13 Class schedule

Regular appointments

Wed, 16:00 - 18:00 13 Class schedule

Wed, 2019-04-10 16:00 - 18:00

Lecturers:
Emily Mae Graf