Podcast appearances and mentions of jennifer altehenger

I'm joined today by Profs. Jennifer Altehenger and Denise Ho to talk about their new edited volume, Material Contradictions in Mao's China, published in December 2022 by the University of Washington Press. Our editors have brought together ten chapters or “case studies” by scholars in various disciplines, as well as a theoretical and methodological reflection on materiality, contradiction, and "the socialist uncanny" (by Jonathan Bach) that ends the book.  The book moves through various types of materials and attendant tensions that characterized everyday life in Mao's China. In addition to exploring the role of materiality in producing social life and thus redeeming the complexity of socialist material life, the authors in this volume employ the methodological tools of not only their own disciplines, but of dialectical materialism. They seek to better understand Mao's China precisely through the material practices and contradictions that the Chairman himself understood as crucial tools of social practice. We're here today, in other words, to talk about another new book in Chinese studies that asks us to take socialism seriously. It's really an incredibly generative text for anyone who is thinking about materiality, temporality, and the way that social life was constructed and experienced in socialist China. In addition to the Material Contradictions volume, we will also discuss The Mao Era in Objects, a related material culture project on which our two editors have also collaborated. Julia Keblinska is a member of the Global Arts and Humanities Society of Fellows at the Ohio State University specializing in Chinese media history and comparative socialisms. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

I'm joined today by Profs. Jennifer Altehenger and Denise Ho to talk about their new edited volume, Material Contradictions in Mao's China, published in December 2022 by the University of Washington Press. Our editors have brought together ten chapters or “case studies” by scholars in various disciplines, as well as a theoretical and methodological reflection on materiality, contradiction, and "the socialist uncanny" (by Jonathan Bach) that ends the book.  The book moves through various types of materials and attendant tensions that characterized everyday life in Mao's China. In addition to exploring the role of materiality in producing social life and thus redeeming the complexity of socialist material life, the authors in this volume employ the methodological tools of not only their own disciplines, but of dialectical materialism. They seek to better understand Mao's China precisely through the material practices and contradictions that the Chairman himself understood as crucial tools of social practice. We're here today, in other words, to talk about another new book in Chinese studies that asks us to take socialism seriously. It's really an incredibly generative text for anyone who is thinking about materiality, temporality, and the way that social life was constructed and experienced in socialist China. In addition to the Material Contradictions volume, we will also discuss The Mao Era in Objects, a related material culture project on which our two editors have also collaborated. Julia Keblinska is a member of the Global Arts and Humanities Society of Fellows at the Ohio State University specializing in Chinese media history and comparative socialisms. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

I'm joined today by Profs. Jennifer Altehenger and Denise Ho to talk about their new edited volume, Material Contradictions in Mao's China, published in December 2022 by the University of Washington Press. Our editors have brought together ten chapters or “case studies” by scholars in various disciplines, as well as a theoretical and methodological reflection on materiality, contradiction, and "the socialist uncanny" (by Jonathan Bach) that ends the book.  The book moves through various types of materials and attendant tensions that characterized everyday life in Mao's China. In addition to exploring the role of materiality in producing social life and thus redeeming the complexity of socialist material life, the authors in this volume employ the methodological tools of not only their own disciplines, but of dialectical materialism. They seek to better understand Mao's China precisely through the material practices and contradictions that the Chairman himself understood as crucial tools of social practice. We're here today, in other words, to talk about another new book in Chinese studies that asks us to take socialism seriously. It's really an incredibly generative text for anyone who is thinking about materiality, temporality, and the way that social life was constructed and experienced in socialist China. In addition to the Material Contradictions volume, we will also discuss The Mao Era in Objects, a related material culture project on which our two editors have also collaborated. Julia Keblinska is a member of the Global Arts and Humanities Society of Fellows at the Ohio State University specializing in Chinese media history and comparative socialisms. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/east-asian-studies

I'm joined today by Profs. Jennifer Altehenger and Denise Ho to talk about their new edited volume, Material Contradictions in Mao's China, published in December 2022 by the University of Washington Press. Our editors have brought together ten chapters or “case studies” by scholars in various disciplines, as well as a theoretical and methodological reflection on materiality, contradiction, and "the socialist uncanny" (by Jonathan Bach) that ends the book.  The book moves through various types of materials and attendant tensions that characterized everyday life in Mao's China. In addition to exploring the role of materiality in producing social life and thus redeeming the complexity of socialist material life, the authors in this volume employ the methodological tools of not only their own disciplines, but of dialectical materialism. They seek to better understand Mao's China precisely through the material practices and contradictions that the Chairman himself understood as crucial tools of social practice. We're here today, in other words, to talk about another new book in Chinese studies that asks us to take socialism seriously. It's really an incredibly generative text for anyone who is thinking about materiality, temporality, and the way that social life was constructed and experienced in socialist China. In addition to the Material Contradictions volume, we will also discuss The Mao Era in Objects, a related material culture project on which our two editors have also collaborated. Julia Keblinska is a member of the Global Arts and Humanities Society of Fellows at the Ohio State University specializing in Chinese media history and comparative socialisms. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/chinese-studies

The growth of markets and consumerism in China's post-Mao era of political and economic reform is familiar. The Mao period (1949–1976), by contrast, a time of scarcity, appears to have had little material culture. In reality, people attributed great meaning to materials and objects, often precisely because they were rare, expensive, and difficult to obtain. Material Contradictions in Mao's China, essays on art, cinema, culture, performance, and more, explores the paradox of material culture under Chinese Communist Party rule and illustrates how central material culture was to social and economic construction of the country and to projections of a socialist utopia within reach of every person, if only they worked hard enough. In an interview conducted on December 9, 2022, Material Contradictions co-editors Jennifer Altehenger and Denise Ho, in conversation with Philip Tinari, discuss the significance of physical objects during the Mao period. 0:00-2:22 Introductions  2:22-8:27 Material Contradictions Under Mao 8:27- 17:28 Objects, scarcity, and abundance 17:28-25:45 The political and the commodity 25:45- Agency in consumerism About the speaker: https://www.ncuscr.org/event/material-culture-maos-china/ Follow Philip Tinati on Twitter: @philiptinari Subscribe to the National Committee on YouTube for video of this interview. Follow us on Twitter (@ncuscr) and Instagram (@ncuscr).

As the Chinese Communist Party celebrates its 100th anniversary, Celia Hatton looks at how party slogans reveal the turbulent history of modern China. Throughout its existence, the party has used key slogans to communicate policy and mobilise the country's vast population. These messages reflect not just the ambitions of party leaders but also have a profound impact on the lives of millions. Using the BBC archive Celia examines the story behind eight key Communist Party slogans, from their early years as a guerrilla movement to the campaigns of China's current all-powerful leader Xi XInping. Contributors: Professor Vivienne Shue, Dr Jennifer Altehenger, Dr Olivia Cheung, author Lijia Zhang, Dr Rowena He, and New York Times correspondent Christopher Buckley. Presenter: Celia Hatton Producer: Alex Last Editor: Hugh Levinson

How did the People's Republic of China popularize basic legal knowledge after its founding in 1949? Jennifer Altehenger, Jessica Rawson Fellow in Modern Asian History and Associate Professor of Chinese History at the University of Oxford, explains how China's party-state attempted to mobilize ordinary citizens to learn laws during the early years of the Mao period (1949–1976) and in the decade after Mao’s death. Professor Altehenger is a historian of modern and contemporary China, in particular the history of materials and industrial design in Chinese politics and everyday life, the history of law, propaganda and information under Communist Party governance, and the history of political language and cultural production. Her first book, "Legal Lessons: Popularizing Laws in the People's Republic of China, 1949-1989" (Harvard University Asia Center, 2018) is now available in paperback: https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674983854 The Harvard on China Podcast is hosted by James Gethyn Evans at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies.

As the twentieth century drew to a close, Hong Kong, recently transformed into a Special Administrative Region of the PRC, seemed a city totally unlike any of its neighbors. Many observers were surprised by how light a touch Beijing seemed to be exerting in the wake of the 1997 handover, and the striking contrast between what could be said, done, and published in Hong Kong, compared to mainland metropolitan cities such as Shanghai and Shenzhen. Since the 20th anniversary of Hong Kong's return to Chinese rule in 2017, controls have tightened dramatically amid fears of tighter political censorship and enhanced self-censorship. However, with the anniversary of the June 4th Massacre approaching, Hong Kong is still the only place on PRC soil where it can be discussed and marked in public. In 2019, what was once a chasm between civic life in Hong Kong and cities such as Guangzhou and Beijing is rapidly closing. What does the future hold for Hong Kong? Will it become just another Chinese city that makes up the Greater Bay Area? The speakers, who have been tracking issues relating to higher education, journalism, protest, and the arts, address Hong Kong's future under Chinese rule. Denise Y. Ho is assistant professor of twentieth-century Chinese history at Yale University. She is an historian of modern China, with a particular focus on the social and cultural history of the Mao period (1949-1976). Her first book, Curating Revolution: Politics on Display in Mao’s China, appeared with Cambridge University Press in 2018. She is also co-editing a volume with Jennifer Altehenger of King’s College London on the material culture of the Mao period. Dr. Ho is currently at work on a new research project on Hong Kong and China, entitled Cross-Border Relations. Louisa Lim is an award-winning journalist who grew up in Hong Kong and reported from China for a decade for NPR and the BBC. She is a senior lecturer in audiovisual journalism at the University of Melbourne, and is currently a visiting fellow at the University of Hong Kong. She also co-hosts The Little Red Podcast, a podcast about China beyond the Beijing beltway, which won the News & Current Affairs award at the 2018 Australian Podcast Awards. Her writing about Hong Kong has appeared in the anthology Hong Kong 20/20: Reflections from a Borrowed Place, as well as The New York Times and The New Yorker, and she is the author of The People’s Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited (Oxford University Press, 2014), which was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize and the Helen Bernstein Award for Excellence in Journalism. Jeffrey Wasserstrom is Chancellor’s Professor of History at UC Irvine. His most recent book is the third edition of China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford, 2018), which he coauthored with Maura Cunningham. In addition to contributing to academic venues, he has written many reviews and commentaries for newspapers, magazines, and journals of opinion, including pieces on Hong Kong that have appeared in The Atlantic, The Nation, the Los Angeles Times, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. He is on the editorial board of Dissent magazine, serves as an academic editor for the China Channel of the Los Angeles Review of Books, and is a former member of the Board of Directors of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations.

In her new book, historian Jennifer Altehenger, a Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Chinese History at King’s College London, grapples with the complex issue of how authorities and cultural workers attempted to create effective law propaganda.  Legal Lessons: Popularizing Laws in the People’s Republic of China, 1949-1989 (Harvard University Asia Center, 2018) traces the techniques used and challenges using a series of case studies including the 1953 Marriage Law mass campaign and the 1954 constitution national discussion. These efforts sought not only to inform Chinese citizens of the law but also involved them in such ways that they would feel obliged to then follow the laws in the future. Drawing from a wide variety of archival sources including government documents, periodicals, advice manuals, memoirs, and posters, Altehenger highlights the tension between the intention of the government to educate and the interpretations the people made themselves about new laws. She explores law dissemination into the 1970s and 1980s, locating a revival of efforts to popularize laws, including the use of new media and five-year plans. These techniques have a lasting legacy in China, making this book important reading for anyone interested in propaganda and the governance of China. Laurie Dickmeyer is an Assistant Professor of History at Angelo State University, where she teaches courses in Asian and US history. Her research concerns nineteenth century US-China relations. She can be reached at laurie.dickmeyer@angelo.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In her new book, historian Jennifer Altehenger, a Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Chinese History at King’s College London, grapples with the complex issue of how authorities and cultural workers attempted to create effective law propaganda.  Legal Lessons: Popularizing Laws in the People’s Republic of China, 1949-1989 (Harvard University Asia Center, 2018) traces the techniques used and challenges using a series of case studies including the 1953 Marriage Law mass campaign and the 1954 constitution national discussion. These efforts sought not only to inform Chinese citizens of the law but also involved them in such ways that they would feel obliged to then follow the laws in the future. Drawing from a wide variety of archival sources including government documents, periodicals, advice manuals, memoirs, and posters, Altehenger highlights the tension between the intention of the government to educate and the interpretations the people made themselves about new laws. She explores law dissemination into the 1970s and 1980s, locating a revival of efforts to popularize laws, including the use of new media and five-year plans. These techniques have a lasting legacy in China, making this book important reading for anyone interested in propaganda and the governance of China. Laurie Dickmeyer is an Assistant Professor of History at Angelo State University, where she teaches courses in Asian and US history. Her research concerns nineteenth century US-China relations. She can be reached at laurie.dickmeyer@angelo.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In her new book, historian Jennifer Altehenger, a Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Chinese History at King’s College London, grapples with the complex issue of how authorities and cultural workers attempted to create effective law propaganda.  Legal Lessons: Popularizing Laws in the People’s Republic of China, 1949-1989 (Harvard University Asia Center, 2018) traces the techniques used and challenges using a series of case studies including the 1953 Marriage Law mass campaign and the 1954 constitution national discussion. These efforts sought not only to inform Chinese citizens of the law but also involved them in such ways that they would feel obliged to then follow the laws in the future. Drawing from a wide variety of archival sources including government documents, periodicals, advice manuals, memoirs, and posters, Altehenger highlights the tension between the intention of the government to educate and the interpretations the people made themselves about new laws. She explores law dissemination into the 1970s and 1980s, locating a revival of efforts to popularize laws, including the use of new media and five-year plans. These techniques have a lasting legacy in China, making this book important reading for anyone interested in propaganda and the governance of China. Laurie Dickmeyer is an Assistant Professor of History at Angelo State University, where she teaches courses in Asian and US history. Her research concerns nineteenth century US-China relations. She can be reached at laurie.dickmeyer@angelo.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In her new book, historian Jennifer Altehenger, a Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Chinese History at King’s College London, grapples with the complex issue of how authorities and cultural workers attempted to create effective law propaganda.  Legal Lessons: Popularizing Laws in the People’s Republic of China, 1949-1989 (Harvard University Asia Center, 2018) traces the techniques used and challenges using a series of case studies including the 1953 Marriage Law mass campaign and the 1954 constitution national discussion. These efforts sought not only to inform Chinese citizens of the law but also involved them in such ways that they would feel obliged to then follow the laws in the future. Drawing from a wide variety of archival sources including government documents, periodicals, advice manuals, memoirs, and posters, Altehenger highlights the tension between the intention of the government to educate and the interpretations the people made themselves about new laws. She explores law dissemination into the 1970s and 1980s, locating a revival of efforts to popularize laws, including the use of new media and five-year plans. These techniques have a lasting legacy in China, making this book important reading for anyone interested in propaganda and the governance of China. Laurie Dickmeyer is an Assistant Professor of History at Angelo State University, where she teaches courses in Asian and US history. Her research concerns nineteenth century US-China relations. She can be reached at laurie.dickmeyer@angelo.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In her new book, historian Jennifer Altehenger, a Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Chinese History at King’s College London, grapples with the complex issue of how authorities and cultural workers attempted to create effective law propaganda.  Legal Lessons: Popularizing Laws in the People’s Republic of China, 1949-1989 (Harvard University Asia Center,... Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/chinese-studies