Abstract

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, mnemonic works about the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution proliferated in China. In the following two decades, memories of the Cultural Revolutionary past predominantly focused on traumatic experiences. However, beginning in the late 1980s, new representations of the Cultural Revolution period began to appear on the horizon under the wave of the capitalist economy and commodification. This dissertation captures and examines three new modes of memories that are drastically different from the main mode seen in previous representations. Drawing on eight examples from literature, film, and Internet presentations, this dissertation devotes attention to the memories that are eroticized, nostalgic and digitized.

Situating these new memories against the backdrop of a persistent political climate in China that has never been in favor of open expressions about the Cultural Revolutionary past, and also against a global climate of prevailing (capitalist) modernity and nostalgic sentiments, this dissertation examines the meanings, values and problems lying in these new mnemonic rewritings of the Cultural Revolution experience, as well as analyzes some of the intricate conflicts and connections between these memories and the global influences. In these three modes of memories, I have discovered not only a strong resistance to the official suppression of critical articulations of the Cultural Revolution history, but also the ways in which such resistance is effected through Chinese intellectuals' inventive use of the market and commodification trends. In the end, by claiming deserved credit for commodification in its positive functions of facilitating Chinese intellectuals' efforts to achieve a more desirable conversation with history and the politics of memory, this dissertation hopes to provide some insights into history's path, especially in light of Chinese intellectuals' heated debate on the nature of the capitalist economy in China.