Rethinking Cultural Revolution Culture
Workshop
Internationales Wissenschaftsforum Heidelberg 22.-24. 2. 2001
It is a common assumption that the Great Proletarian
Cultural Revolution (1966-76) was a period of
unprecedented cultural stagnation. 8 so-called model
works (yangbanxi) are taken as paradigmatic for all
there was of Cultural Revolution Culture. They are
condemned as an aberration in terms of aesthetic and
cultural development. And yet, the idea that the
Cultural Revolution was simply an atypical phase of
political extremism, distinct from
the years before and after this "unfortunate
period," is misleading, most certainly as concerns
artistic production.
The notion that there was
nothing but the 8 model works in Cultural Revolution
Culture is mistaken. Artistic production was not
restricted to the yangbanxi (and even their number
had grown to 18 by the end of the period). Moreover,
the yangbanxi are everything else but the product of
an iconoclastic, and xenophobic era as which the
Cultural Revolution is so often described. Instead,
they are manifestations of a hybrid taste which
calls for the transformation of Chinese tradition
according to foreign standards, a taste which for a
century has led to the creation of a Chinese culture
with foreign imprint. Therefore, the model works
cannot simply be considered a hideous perversion of
the Maoist experiment of re-inventing a new--Chinese
but revolutionary--culture. Instead, they yangbanxi
have their rightful place in a long series of
attempted syntheses of foreign and Chinese heritage
that continues to the present day.
The aims of the Heidelberg workshop are threefold:
1. It hopes to uncover the origins of
Cultural Revolution Culture and to trace its
repercussions in contemporary art and culture. It
will discuss and evaluate the historical, artistic
and social depth and the cultural significance of
Cultural Revolution Culture.
2. The workshop intends
to enrich our knowledge of cultural life during the
Cultural Revolution which is still hampered by the
difficulty of obtaining sources. It will juxtapose
objects of cultural production from the Cultural
Revolution and the memories by participants in the
Cultural Revolution.
3. The workshop sets out to
present an alternative reading of Cultural
Revolution Culture. In discussions of the model
works as well as other cultural products (such as
poetry, short stories, novels, songs, music,
paintings, theatre, film) from the Cultural
Revolution and from the years before and
after those "10 years of stagnation" it may become
apparent that Cultural Revolution Culture must be
considered less the deviant than the norm of
(orthodox political) culture in the People's
Republic of China.
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