EVENTS

Abstract
The presentation will be based on the speaker’s book Literature the People Love: Reading Chinese Texts from the Early Maoist Period (1949-1966). In the Maoist period, authors and the communist literary establishment shared the belief that art could reshape reality, and was thus just as crucial in the creation of a new nation as building infrastructure or developing advanced weaponry. Her book investigates the production of a literary system designed to meet the needs of a newly revolutionary society in China, decentering the Cold War understanding of communist culture. This talk will highlight the main arguments in the book, showing how gender, tradition, and communist ideology intersected in key texts.  Rather than arguing for or against the literary merits of the works, the speaker strives to present a sympathetic understanding of culture from a period in China’s history in which people’s lives were greatly affected by political events.

About the Speaker
Dr. Krista Van Fleit Hang is an Associate Professor of Chinese Literature and Language at the University of South Carolina. She holds a PhD. in East Asian Languages and Civilizations from the University of Chicago She is a recipient of the Jacob Javits Fellowship. Apart from the book, Literature the People Love: Reading Chinese Texts from the Early Maoist Period (1949-1966), Dr. Van Fleit Hang has also contributed chapters and articles on Chinese Literature and Cinema. She is in the process of writing another book titled, From the Middle Kingdom to the Western Heavens: Cultural Production in Modern Asia. In recent years, Dr. Van Fleit Hang has been studying the social impact of Indian cinema on the Chinese mindset. Presently, she is doing her research as a Fulbright Nehru Visiting Scholar at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.