Comments on: Non-commercial emotion http://www.froginawell.net/china/2007/10/non-commercial-emotion/ The China History Group Blog Thu, 09 Feb 2012 18:35:30 -0800 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.1 By: Lincoln Cushing http://www.froginawell.net/china/2007/10/non-commercial-emotion/comment-page-1/#comment-77122 Lincoln Cushing Sun, 25 Nov 2007 23:40:20 +0000 http://www.froginawell.net/china/2007/10/non-commercial-emotion/#comment-77122 Chinese posters and history- I find the ongoing debate about perceived and real conditions during the Cultural Revolution to be extremely interesting. Given the voluminous thrashing of the GPCR, almost any treatment of that period that suggests positive qualities is dismissed as Maoist apologism. I just finished writing a book on posters of that period, based on a giant collection recently donated to UC Berkeley's East Asian library, which also has an on-line catalog. I and my co-author suggest that the truth of this period is far more complicated and dynamic than is usually presented as "fact." In the text I cite some academic settings in which poster scholarship is used to reveal the less-exposed history of positive elements of that period. Chinese posters and history-

I find the ongoing debate about perceived and real conditions during the Cultural Revolution to be extremely interesting. Given the voluminous thrashing of the GPCR, almost any treatment of that period that suggests positive qualities is dismissed as Maoist apologism. I just finished writing a book on posters of that period, based on a giant collection recently donated to UC Berkeley’s East Asian library, which also has an on-line catalog. I and my co-author suggest that the truth of this period is far more complicated and dynamic than is usually presented as “fact.” In the text I cite some academic settings in which poster scholarship is used to reveal the less-exposed history of positive elements of that period.

]]> By: chriswaugh_bj http://www.froginawell.net/china/2007/10/non-commercial-emotion/comment-page-1/#comment-70568 chriswaugh_bj Wed, 10 Oct 2007 06:19:10 +0000 http://www.froginawell.net/china/2007/10/non-commercial-emotion/#comment-70568 And I'm getting more and more disturbed by the sheer number of Chinese people, including my wife who was born in the early 80s, and others old enough to remember the Mao era, who look back to the Mao era as a time of simplicity with no materialism or commercialism. Of course, any version of Communism without materialism is a contradiction in terms, but I think they're talking the "acquisition of goods because that's the only purpose we can find for our shallow, meaningless existences/consumerism" definition of "materialism". And I’m getting more and more disturbed by the sheer number of Chinese people, including my wife who was born in the early 80s, and others old enough to remember the Mao era, who look back to the Mao era as a time of simplicity with no materialism or commercialism. Of course, any version of Communism without materialism is a contradiction in terms, but I think they’re talking the “acquisition of goods because that’s the only purpose we can find for our shallow, meaningless existences/consumerism” definition of “materialism”.

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