VLS 3: Readership in the Context of Heightened Political Controls

Politics has always had an impact on readership in a given society. In Maoist China, the degree of political controls over the practices of reading and communication becomes particularly interesting. The third session will reach this topic from the angles of the receivers and the reception/dissemination processes of political forces. The first talk, Peidong Sun discusses the state censorship on personal readings during the Cultural Revolution, with further suggestions on the limitations of censorship in the everyday life and reading. The second talk, given by Puck Engman, suggests an understanding of political communication in a context of “decoding.” A top-secret bulletin for the political elites will be discussed as a case, with a focus on how the intelligence provided through this bulletin is circulated and consumed. Perry Link (UC Riverside) will be acting as discussant to the session.

“Fragrant Flowers” and “Poisonous Weeds”: Censoring Personal Readings during the Cultural Revolution

Peidong Sun (CERI, Science Po Paris)

Abstract:

This paper studies the dynamic relationship between censorship and readership in the cultural governance of China. Using previously untapped CCP documents, private archival collections, oral history, personal and work journals, I examine the motivations, mechanisms, impact, and evolution of state censorship on personal readings during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). Specifically, I explore how books that were labeled “fragrant flowers” (xiang hua 香花) and “poisonous weeds” (du cao 毒草) evinced the state’s cultural sensibility and its interactions with official censorship. On the one hand, through “singing red and striking black” (chang hong da hei 唱红打黑), the system of cultural governance was both normative and punitive: official censorship and self-censorship induced “political side-taking” (zheng zhi zhan dui 政治站队) and “habitual following” (xi guan xing jin gen习惯性紧跟) within the society, which in turn normalized political power and transformed censorship into a cultural norm. On the other hand, a thriving literary underground, as seen in the hoarding of forbidden titles and their partial unbanning since 1970, suggests the limitations of censorship and shows how networks of information percolated through official politics and entered everyday life through reading and writing.