Moulding the Socialist Subject - Cinema and Chinese Modernity (1949-1966)

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.

About the author

Xiaoning Lu is Lecturer in Modern Chinese Culture and Language at SOAS, University of London and co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Communist Visual Cultures (Oxford University Press, 2020).

Product details

• Authors: Xiaoning Lu
• Publisher: Brill
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 30.01.2020
• EAN: 9789004423510
• ISBN: 978-90-04-42351-0
• No. of pages: 212
• Dimensions: 160 mm x 239 mm x 15 mm
• Weight: 454 g
• Series: Ideas, History, and Modern Chi
• Subject: Humanities, art, music > Art > Theatre, ballet