The Construction of the Image /Myth of a Martyr in the Cultural Revolution: An Interpretation/Demythicization of The Song of Ouyang Hai
Jin Jingmai’s novel The Song of Ouyang Hai was published in 1965 and became extremely popular in 1966 right before the launch of the Cultural Revolution. It can be regarded as a prelude to Cultural Revolution literature. The novel epitomizes the transition from the politically inclined “seventeen-year literature” (1949–66) to the highly politicalized “Cultural Revolution literature” (1966–76). It is also the perfect embodiment of the creation of the myth of a socialist martyr. In this article, I attempt to examine the features of socialist martyrs and decode the construction of the myth of such martyrs by exploring motifs such as diaries, letters, and the performative bodies in The Song of Ouyang Hai as well as related works and posters that feature revolutionary and socialist martyrs from the 1960s. The article also examines how the constant revisions of the novel driven by the political power struggles during and after the Cultural Revolution complicate and adumbrate the myth of the socialist martyr.
Chinese Posters: Art from the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China produced thousands of powerful social and political posters to exhort the Chinese people in the sweeping transformation of Chinese society. "Revolutionary Chinese Poster Art" collects more than 150 of most the striking of these posters, complemented by an insightful and thoroughly researched text on their social and artistic context, and a personal account of living in Beijing during the Revolution. In a nutshell, from 1966 to 1976, there was a countrywide mass campaign to reform Chinese society and the Communist Party, directed by Mao Zedong, that resulted in mass social upheaval. Those who were not considered to be following the right socialist path were called out as class traitors, some sent to re-education labour camps.Everything and everyone was meant to serve the greater effort of the socialist revolution, including these posters, one of the few art forms sanctioned by the party. Theposters are uniformly utopian, bright, and graphically powerful, portraying the ideal society that they were at least ostensibly trying to achieve. A short (politically neutral, as much as possible) primer on the GPCR and contexton the production, social circumstance, graphics, and design influence of the posters.
Bodies of Evidence: Burial, Memory and the Recovery of Missing Persons in Cyprus
List of Figures and Maps Acknowledgements Chapter 1. Heirs of Antigone: Disappearances and Political Memory Chapter 2. Suppressed Experiences Chapter 3. Testimonies of Fragmentation, Recollections of Unity Chapter 4. The Missing as a Set of Representations Chapter 5. The Martyrdom of the Missing Chapter 6. L'image Juste, or Juste une Image? Chapter 7. Painting Absences, Describing Losses Chapter 8. Antigone's Doubt, Creon's Dilemma Chapter 9. Power, Complicity, and Public Secrecy Bibliography Appendices Index