Abstract

In the context of the bigger puzzle “why people fanatically supported Mao while his regime was largely destructive”, this talk will discuss how the Maoist discourse helped recruit people’s support for the revolutionary regime on an emotional level.

I specifically emphasize that it was more the techniques by which these discourses were propagated than the discourses themselves that “persuaded” people into political activism.

Yu Liu is a lecturer in Chinese Politics at the University of Cambridge.

She received her Ph.D. from Columbia University in 2006 and did her postdoc at Harvard University. Her research interests include Chinese revolution, political economy of post-communist transition, comparative democratization and globalization. She has published in China Quarterly and Modern China. She also writes extensively as a political columnist for magazines in China.

All Welcome!

Directions will be available from the Newnham College Porter’s lodge, entrance on Sidgwick Avenue.