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Fashion and Politics in Twentieth-Century China

Chinese woman short bob hairstyle folded arms wearing a Mao collar jacket smiling b and w shot
August 9, 2022

Cornell Contemporary China Initiative's Fall Theme

The Cornell Contemporary China Initiative (CCCI) lecture series aims to expose the broad campus community to issues and scholarship of contemporary China and and the fall 2022 CCCI lecture series connected to two courses taught by Professor Peidong Sun, Fashion and Politics in Twentieth-Century China and Life and Death in China Under Mao.  She also hosted and directed the series.

FALL ’22 Fashion and Politics in Twentieth-Century China * – Peidong Sun

Some of the questions that guest speakers investigated include: How do we define politics from the dimension of fashion? What was a politicized fashion? How did fashion reflect the power structure? How did fashion become a way of obedience and resistance? And how do we define and interpret the human condition in China under Mao's rule (1949-1976)? What was human resilience in the face of absolute power? 

The Fall 2022 CCCI lecture videos linked in the titles and were recorded on the dates of the talk.  If a title is not linked, the speaker did not permit recording.

Jeffrey Wasserstrom, (History, University of California, Irvine)

     Clothing, Kinship, Slogans, and Songs in Chinese Protest Movements of the Past and Present

     September 26, 2022.

Antonia Finnane, (History, University of Melbourne, Australia)

     Patterns for the People in Communist China

     October 12, 2022.

Deborah Davis, (Sociology, Yale University)

     Sexual Revolutions and the Future of the Institution of Marriage

     October 26, 2022.

Simona Segre-Reinach, (Fashion Studies, University of Bologna, Italy)

     Sino-Italian Encounters in Global Fashion: 20 Years of Sino-Italian Collaborations

     November 9, 2022.

We thank all of our co-sponsors for helping to make this series possible: Asian American Pacific Studies Program, Asian Studies, College of Human Ecology, Cornell Society for the Humanities, Feminist, Gender & Sexuality Studies, Department of History, Department of International & Comparative Labor Relations, The Levinson China & Asia-Pacific Studies Program.

 *Professor Peidong Sun’s course listings: Fashion and Politics in the Twentieth Century China (HIST4075/HIST6075/CAPS 4075) and Life and Death in China Under Mao (HIST3525/CAPS3525)

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