22/06/2026, 18:00, Haus der Universität (4a/ 4b)
Moderation: Dr. Yongli Li, Dr. Hannah Pardey (HHU)
How might cinema make revolution and mobilize the masses? Cinematic Guerrillas is a media history of Chinese film exhibition and reception that offers fresh insights into the powers and limits of propaganda. Drawing on a wealth of archives, memoirs, interviews, and ethnographic fieldwork, this book talk examines the media networks and environments, discourses and practices, experiences and memories of film projectionists and their grassroots audiences from the 1940s to the 1980s. Using "cinematic guerrillas" to refer to onscreen militants, off-the-grid movie teams, and unruly moviegoers, this presentation reconceptualizes socialist media practices as "revolutionary spirit mediumship" that aimed to turn audiences into congregations, contribute to the Mao cult, convert skeptics of revolutionary miracles, and exorcize class enemies.
Jie Li is professor of East Asian languages and civilizations at Harvard University. Her books include Shanghai Homes: Palimpsests of Private Life (Columbia, 2014), Red Legacies in China: Cultural Afterlives of the Communist Revolution (2016), and Utopian Ruins: A Memorial Museum of the Mao Era (2020).