New Perspectives on the Chinese 1950s Workshop; 19-21 July 2012

New Perspectives on the Chinese 1950s Workshop

King’s Manor, University of York

19-21 July 2012

This workshop has been funded by the British Inter-University China Centre (AHRC) through the Chinese 1950s Network. The network explores new approaches China’s domestic and international history in this period, it is hosted at the University of York and partnered with East China Normal University (ECNU) in Shanghai.

The aim of the workshop is to promote the sharing of ideas on historical issues and primary source work, the establishment of a network of researchers and to explore the potential for future collaborative work.

PLEASE NOTE:  For logistical reasons this is an invitation-only event, panel details are for information only

 Friday 19th July

Panel 1 – Writing the 1950s (culture, society, knowledge and history) Chair: Karl Gerth

Felix Wemheuer (University of Vienna), How to Write a People’s History of 1950s: A Thought Experiment

Jennifer E. Altehenger (King’s College London), Finding the Right Words: Encyclopedic dictionaries, self-help guides, and the politics of knowledge in China, 1949-1956.

Panel 2 – Individuals and Institutions, Chair: Julia Lovell

Xiaobing Tang (University of Michigan), The Idea of Socialist Art in the 1950s.

Christine Vidal (Université Lille III), From Beijing to Hangzhou: Song Yunbin and his experience of united front work (1949-1957).

Gordon Barrett (University of Bristol), Transnational Contacts and Foreign Policy: the CCP, Chinese Scientists, and the World Federation of Workers, 1947-1966

 Saturday 20th July

Panel 3 – The Economy and Society, Chair: Tehyun Ma

Robert Cliver (Humboldt State University), Surviving Socialism: Private Industry and the Transition to Socialism in China

Felix Boecking (University of Edinburgh), Dismal scientists among the hundred flowers: Chinese economists in the 1950s

Benno Weiner (Appalachian State University, NC), High Tide on the High Plateau: The United Front and Pastoral Collectivization in Northeast Tibet (Amdo), 1955-1956

Keynote by Yang Kuisong (East China Normal University/Peking University) on the state of the field and future directions

Panel 4 – China and Japan in the 1950s, Chair: Chris Hess

Amy King (Australian National University), Dealing with the ‘Enemy’: Overseas Japanese in the Soviet Union and People’s Republic of China, 1945-1956

Barak Kushner (University of Cambridge), The Dissolution of the Japanese Empire and the Struggle for Legitimacy in Postwar East Asia, 1945–1965

 Sunday 21st July

Panel 5 – China’s Urban 1950s, Chair: Jon Howlett

Karl Gerth (University California, San Diego), Compromising with Consumerism in

Socialist China: Transnational Flows and Internal Tensions in ‘Socialist Advertising’

Christian Hess (Sophia University), Living the socialist high life? Colonial legacies and the making of urban socialism in Dalian, 1945-1955

Jiang Jin (East China Normal University), Urbanism vs. Communism? Best-Seller theatres in Early PRC Shanghai