Yang Chenxi (Mr)

Proposed Thesis Title: Public Spectacles in Shaanxi Province in the 1950s
Supervisor: Associate Professor Hajimu Masuda

My personal interest in history lies in interpreting local societies and the daily lives of ordinary people, thus reconsidering ideology, public culture, and the problem of subjectivity. I am primarily interested in the cultural and social history of post-war China and Japan. I also read and write about international politics, the communist movement, and nationalism during World War II and the Cold War. In addition to history, I enjoy writing film criticism and learning media theory, which stems from my internship as a research assistant at the Beijing Film Academy. I have published an article on game-adapted TV series in the Chinese journal Contemporary TV.

My recent research interests draw on the history of propaganda and campaigns in the Mao era. In my master’s thesis, I primarily discussed how the local government nationalized the film industry and built a projection system in the 1950s. For my proposal of PhD dissertation, I expand the research from cinema to a broader sense of “public spectacles” which include open-air cinema, folk art activities, sports, and public lectures in local China. The effectiveness of modern propaganda depends on a variety of factors, including local infrastructure, geographical environment, cultural traditions, gender roles, population structure, and the efficiency of government administrative departments. Therefore, I see the organization, iterative development, and politicization of these diverse activities as one aspect of modernization. At the same time, the “public spectacles” created by these activities also serve to illuminate the question posed by Gail Hershatter: “What was socialism locally, and for whom?”

In my leisure time, I enjoy playing video games, running, and watching movies. The movie I’ve been watching recently is Andrzej Żuławski’s On the Silver Globe.