Bo Xilai and the Cultural Revolution: More than singing revolutionary songs?
Speaker:
Professor Susanne Weigelin-Schwiedrzik (University of Vienne)
Type:
Public Lecture
Sponsors:
Institute of Asian Research, Centre for Chinese Research
About the Speaker:
Professor of Sinology at the Department for East Asian Studies of the University of Vienna, Austria, since October 2010 Dean of the Faculty for Philological and Cultural Studies. Her work in on Chinese historiography focuses on the political and intellectual situation in the Chinese world, as well the official and the unofficial historiography of the Cultural Revolution. Publishes in German, Chinese and English on CCP Party history writing, Chinese historiography, and politics and memory in China, including Post-Cold War History and Identity in Europe and East Asia, “Re-Imagining the Chinese Peasant: The Historiography on the Great Leap Forward” and As China Meets the World. China’s Changing Position in the International Community.
About the Event:
Since the trial of Bo Xilai in 2013, there has been no official discussion in China on the possible differences in political strategy which might exist between Bo Xilai and Xi Jinping. This presentation will analyze Bo Xilai’s Cultural Revolution experience as well as the discussions on various Chinese blogs to test the hypothesis that Bo’s strategy is based on an assessment of the Cultural Revolution which is different from mainstream discourse in the PRC.
