A study of Mao’s representation in various forms in Chinese history, focusing on a historical timeframe from the 1949 until the early 1990s. With a reflection on the historical, social and cultural...Show moreA study of Mao’s representation in various forms in Chinese history, focusing on a historical timeframe from the 1949 until the early 1990s. With a reflection on the historical, social and cultural context behind, this study investigates Mao’s iconicity by analyzing the tropes and the meanings of Mao’s representations in history, including the Mao posters, the Mao badges and Political Pop arworks. One the one hand, I dissect the different ideologies behind the Chinese contexts and explore the ways they interact with the depiction of Mao in Chinese history. On the other hand, I believe that the form of representation often has a noteworthy effect on what is being represented. Therefore, I delve into the discussion of each artistic medium, in order to see their roles in the development of Mao’s iconicity. With this thesis, I explore the historical evolvement of Mao's icon from a propagandist subject to a popular symbol in Chinese culture.Show less
This paper talks about the influence of the Cultural Revolution in a global context. 2018 marks the 50th anniversary of a remarkable year: 1968, during which the Mai 68 events of France and the...Show moreThis paper talks about the influence of the Cultural Revolution in a global context. 2018 marks the 50th anniversary of a remarkable year: 1968, during which the Mai 68 events of France and the 68er-Bewegung of West Germany happened. In the 1960s, mobilised struggles evolved into new social movements, whose formation was largely influenced by the Maoist Cultural Revolution in China. This article analyses the role of Chinese Cultural Revolution in shaping the new social movements in 1960s Western Europe (France and West Germany) and the communications of the Cultural Revolution from China to the Western European recipients. The paper finds that the Cultural Revolution inspired the 1960s Western European social movement with new elements including a grass-roots approach, anti-authoritarian label and the students’ leadership. The Cultural Revolution reshaped the pattern of French social movement but brought inspiration to West German far-left terrorism.Show less
For a long time, common belief among researchers on women in China has been that starting already before the Cultural Revolution, women were mobilized to work according to the needs of the Party,...Show moreFor a long time, common belief among researchers on women in China has been that starting already before the Cultural Revolution, women were mobilized to work according to the needs of the Party, and that gender erasure took place during the Cultural Revolution. Within this research, six propaganda posters were examined, along the lines of the importance of models for the CCP. The posters were meant to paint a positive picture on whatever the Party needed from the people, in order to mobilize them. The Party encouraged women to start working in labor fields traditionally occupied by men, because of labor forces, and propagated this as a means of achieving gender equality, while actually the opposite was achieved. The Party uses gender equality as a means to get people to do as it wanted, and this came to its climax during the Cultural Revolution, however the Party never made gender equality a real priority. Even though gender equality was never really established, propaganda posters did give women the believe that equality is a possibility.Show less
