Echoes of the Past during the Wuhan Lockdown

Guobin Yang (Grace Lee Boggs Professor of Communication & Sociology, University of Pennsylvania)

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Abstract

The sealing off of Wuhan from January 23 to April 8, 2020 was an unprecedented historical event in modern world history. Recently published by Columbia University Press, Guobin Yang’s ' The Wuhan Lockdown' recounts this history by presenting a galaxy of scenes and characters. This talk introduces the main features of the book and then zooms in on one theme – the prevalence of the past in these scenes and characters. From the rhetoric of people’s war to the practice of diary-writing, from classical poetry to the “Century of Humiliation,” historical memories and cultural references pervaded public discourse, making the extraordinary experiences of the lockdown both legible and emotionally poignant.

Recording

Echoes of the Past during the Wuhan Lockdown

About the speaker

Guobin Yang is the Grace Lee Boggs Professor of Communication and Sociology at the Annenberg School for Communication and the Department of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, where he directs the Center on Digital Culture and Society and serves as deputy director of the Center for the Study of Contemporary China. He is the author of The Wuhan Lockdown (2022), The Red Guard Generation and Political Activism in China (2016), and The Power of the Internet in China: Citizen Activism Onlin e (2009). He is also the editor or co-editor of six books, including Engaging Social Media in China: Platforms, Publics and Production (2021).

Registration

This webinar will take place online via Zoom. Click here to register .

Chair: Dr Xiaoning Lu, Reader in Modern Chinese Culture and Language, SOAS University of London.

Organiser: SOAS China Institute

Contact email: sci@soas.ac.uk