SOAS Research Online

A Free Database of the Latest Research by SOAS Academics and PhD Students

[skip to content]

Lu, Xiaoning (2020) Moulding the Socialist Subject: Cinema and Chinese Modernity (1949-1966). Leiden: Brill.

[img] Text - Accepted Version
Restricted to Repository staff only

Request a copy

Abstract

What role did cinema play in the Chinese Communist Party’s political project of shaping ideal socialist citizens in the early People’s Republic? In Moulding the Socialist Subject, Xiaoning Lu deploys case studies from popular film genres, movie star culture and rural film exhibition practices to argue that Chinese cinema in 1949–1966, at once an important political instrument, an enjoyable yet instructive form of entertainment, and a specific manifestation of the socialist society of the spectacle, was an everyday site where the moulding of the new socialist person unfolded. While painting a broad picture of Chinese socialist cinema, Lu credits the human agency of film professionals, whose self-reflexivity and individual adaptability played an intrinsic role in the Party’s political project.

Item Type: Authored Books
Keywords: Chinese cinemas, socialist China, Mao's China, socialist subject, communism, Chinese film culture
SOAS Departments & Centres: Departments and Subunits > Department of East Asian Languages & Cultures
ISBN: 9789004423510
DOI (Digital Object Identifier): https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004423527
Date Deposited: 28 Jan 2019 10:08
URI: https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/id/eprint/29940

Altmetric Data

Statistics

Download activity - last 12 monthsShow export options
Downloads since deposit
6 month trend
2Downloads
6 month trend
396Hits
Accesses by country - last 12 monthsShow export options
Accesses by referrer - last 12 monthsShow export options

Repository staff only

Edit Item Edit Item