Teaching about Asia
Teaching China’s Cultural Revolution through Film: Blue Kite as a Case Study
Author:
Jin Feng
Grinnell College
About Jin
Jin Feng (Ph.D. in Asian Languages and Cultures) is Associate Professor of Chinese at Grinnell College. She is the author of
The Making of a Family Saga: Ginling College (1915-1952) (SUNY Press, 2009) and
The New Woman in Early Twentieth-Century Chinese Fiction (Purdue UP, 2004), and the translator of
Chen Hengzhe’s Autobiography of a Chinese Young Girl (Anhui Education, 2006). She is currently researching and writing on Web-based popular Chinese fiction.
Abstract
“The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution” (1966-76), or Wenge, as it is referred to in its condensed Chinese equivalent, represents a collective trauma for the Chinese nation and people in the twentieth century. However, compared with more amply researched and lucidly presented parts of modern Chinese history in English language scholarship outside China, its ambiguity, complexity, and political sensitiveness all make this period more elusive and harder to grapple with for scholars and teachers of Chinese history and culture. Within China, although more diverse historical narratives about this period have emerged in recent years, the Cultural Revolution is still barely mentioned in standard high school history textbooks even today.
How to Cite:
Feng, J., 2011. Teaching China’s Cultural Revolution through Film: Blue Kite as a Case Study. ASIANetwork Exchange: A Journal for Asian Studies in the Liberal Arts, 18(2), pp.46–61. DOI: http://doi.org/10.16995/ane.185
Published on
01 Apr 2011.
Peer Reviewed
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