Séance du 23 mai 2024

Revolutionary China and Sources for The Red Detachment of Women, par Kristine Harris

Séance à 18h à l’INHA. Salle Walter Benjamin (rez-de-chaussée)

Cette séance est organisée en partenariat avec le Centre d’études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine et dans le cadre du programme professeurs invités 2023-2024 de l’EHESS.

Discutante invitée: Anne Kerlan, Directrice de recherche CNRS, UMR Chine Corée Japon– Centre d’études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine

Suivez toutes les conférences de Kristine Harris en France! Programme en ligne ici.

The Red Detachment of Women remains the most iconic of all the “revolutionary contemporary model works” (geming xiandai yangbanxi) created for stage and screen during China’s Cultural Revolution of 1966-1976, and for more than a half century, the representation of women in the “Modern Chinese Revolutionary Ballet” (geming xiandai wuju), as well as the vaunted role of Jiang Qing (Madame Mao) in the production process, have garnered far-reaching public attention and expert scholarly analysis. But what of the significance of women and gender in the earlier origins and subsequent development of The Red Detachment? This talk examines the early sources for Red Detachment—including oral histories, reportage, and a local opera of Hainan Island—and the changing significance of these women’s stories and images as they were taken up by new authors and reimagined through various media and products for national and international audiences. Along with the well-known 1961 feature film made in Shanghai by melodrama master Xie Jin, as well as the staged versions for Peking Opera and ballet (and the filmed versions of each), we also explore the lianhuanhua comic book and related promotional materials within the broader context of early PRC film, visual culture, and performing arts.

Kristine Harris is associate Professor, Department of History, Asian Studies Program State University of New York, New Paltz, is a historian specialised in Chinese cinema. She has conducted extensive research on the history of silent Chinese cinema from the 1920s to the 1930s and on women in 20th-century Chinese cinema from the 1930s to the Maoist period. She has contributed to numerous reference works. Among her publications in English:

* “Chinese Shadows: The Parallel Lives of Love and Duty.” In The Oxford Handbook of Chinese Cinemas. Edited by Carlos Rojas and Eileen Cheng-yin Chow, 39-61. Oxford University Press, 2013.

*”Re-makes/Re-models: The Red Detachment of Women between Stage and Screen.” Reprinted in Chinese Cinema: Critical Concepts in Media and Cultural Studies. Edited by Chris Berry. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2013.

*”Modern Mulans: Re-imagining the Mulan Legend in Chinese Film, 1920s-60s.” In The New Woman International: Representations in Photography and Film from the 1870s through the 1960s. Edited by Elizabeth Otto and Vanessa Rocco, with a foreword by Linda Nochlin, pp. 309-330. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2011.

*“The Goddess: Fallen Woman of Shanghai.” Reprinted in Chinese Films in Focus II, edited by Chris Berry, 128- 136. London and NY: Palgrave / British Film Institute, 2008.

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