Papers by Mian Chen
Gender & History, 2024
This article focuses on the relationship between psychiatry and homosexuality in the People's Rep... more This article focuses on the relationship between psychiatry and homosexuality in the People's Republic of China from the Mao era to early Deng era (1949-c.90). I argue that, entangled with the multi-centred global psychopathological regime of homosexuality, the psychiatric discourse in China perpetuated a medicalised concept of homosexuality from the Mao period through the early Deng years. This article further situates homosexuality in Mao's China in the socialist camp to call for a decentring historiography of modern homosexuality. It also contributes to the understanding of the continuity between the Mao era and the Deng era.
Twentieth-Century China , 2024
This article examines the processes through which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) developed its... more This article examines the processes through which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) developed its propaganda outlets in Hong Kong during the mid-twentieth century. I argue that the CCP’s operations in 1940s Hong Kong laid the foundation for its propaganda machinery in the 1950s through transborder staffing and a repertoire of flexible strategies. During the 1940s, the Party trained a group of propagandists who were well-acquainted with Hong Kong and frequently crossed the Hong Kong–Guangdong border to preserve the Party’s power base. These propagandists developed a series of strategies, including infiltration, camouflage, and diversification. In the 1950s, the Party employed these seasoned operatives in Hong Kong and Guangdong to coordinate propaganda campaigns and utilized the pre-established strategies to navigate the new Cold War geopolitics. This study also highlights the Guangdong–Hong Kong nexus, the CCP’s flexibility, and the continuities surrounding the foundation of the People’s Republic of China.
Journal of Chinese Cinemas , 2022
Although existing scholarship is paying increasing attention to leftist cinema in Cold War Hong K... more Although existing scholarship is paying increasing attention to leftist cinema in Cold War Hong Kong, few works fully examine the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) revolutionary filmmaking practices during the early Cold War. Centering on the short-lived leftist studio South China Film Company (1949–1952), this paper argues that the studio’s development epitomized the CCP’s efforts to transform cinematic representation for multiple revolutionary purposes and strengthen the Party’s mobilization of filmmaking communities, which were eventually crushed by escalating conflicts between colonial authorities and the CCP. The films produced by South China Film Company exemplified the CCP’s ambitions to appeal to a Cantonese-speaking local audience and later, to carry out more radical ideological campaigns, influence overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia, and conduct thought reform of intellectuals. Film production was accompanied by mobilization of leftist filmmakers. The ideological message and mobilization led to a crackdown by colonial authorities and further drove the CCP to adopt a more implicit approach to launching ideological campaigns. This paper revises the history of South China Film Company and unsettles the existing historiography of Hong Kong leftist cinema that centers mainly on moderation and balance.
Books by Mian Chen
Keywords in Queer Sinophone Studies, 2020
In雷躍捷Lei Yuejie, 陳衛星Chen Weixing, eds., 中國新聞傳播學評論（02）China Review of Journalism and Communication... more In雷躍捷Lei Yuejie, 陳衛星Chen Weixing, eds., 中國新聞傳播學評論（02）China Review of Journalism and Communication Studies (Beijing: 中國傳媒大學出版社Communication University of China Press, 2018), 93-108.
Book Reviews by Mian Chen
新京報(Xinjing bao, Beijing News)., 2017
Review of Eating Rice from Bamboo Roots by Jacob Eyferth in 新京報(Xinjing bao, Beijing News).
Conference Presentations by Mian Chen
Paper presented at the 4th Young Scholars’ Conference on China Studies in Hong Kong Baptist Unive... more Paper presented at the 4th Young Scholars’ Conference on China Studies in Hong Kong Baptist University. Outstanding Paper Award.
This paper examines the ideology formation in the early years of
People’s Republic of China, tryi... more This paper examines the ideology formation in the early years of
People’s Republic of China, trying to explain how the state made
ordinary people in Guangzhou city accept propaganda by reading
newspaper individually and institutionally, and thus explain how
propaganda was possible. This paper argues that the grassroots
ideology building is not only a process of arbitrary brainwashing, but also
a process of learning. In the case of newspaper reading, ordinary people
learned the power of the state by creative interpretation and even by
appropriating state power following the new propaganda principles;
specific state agents such as correspondents and newspaper reading
groups, who were bound by “patron-client” relationship with different
institutions and the press, also learned to push forward the state’s will.
Contrary to existing literature adopting a top-down approach mainly
based on newspaper text-analysis and considering the propaganda
effect as undoubtedly omnipotent, the author used local archives,
memoirs, letters, working records and corresponding periodicals of
newspaper reading groups to show the micro-dynamics of ideology
building. This paper would strengthen understandings of interplay
between agency and ideology in state building.
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Papers by Mian Chen
Books by Mian Chen
Book Reviews by Mian Chen
Conference Presentations by Mian Chen
People’s Republic of China, trying to explain how the state made
ordinary people in Guangzhou city accept propaganda by reading
newspaper individually and institutionally, and thus explain how
propaganda was possible. This paper argues that the grassroots
ideology building is not only a process of arbitrary brainwashing, but also
a process of learning. In the case of newspaper reading, ordinary people
learned the power of the state by creative interpretation and even by
appropriating state power following the new propaganda principles;
specific state agents such as correspondents and newspaper reading
groups, who were bound by “patron-client” relationship with different
institutions and the press, also learned to push forward the state’s will.
Contrary to existing literature adopting a top-down approach mainly
based on newspaper text-analysis and considering the propaganda
effect as undoubtedly omnipotent, the author used local archives,
memoirs, letters, working records and corresponding periodicals of
newspaper reading groups to show the micro-dynamics of ideology
building. This paper would strengthen understandings of interplay
between agency and ideology in state building.
People’s Republic of China, trying to explain how the state made
ordinary people in Guangzhou city accept propaganda by reading
newspaper individually and institutionally, and thus explain how
propaganda was possible. This paper argues that the grassroots
ideology building is not only a process of arbitrary brainwashing, but also
a process of learning. In the case of newspaper reading, ordinary people
learned the power of the state by creative interpretation and even by
appropriating state power following the new propaganda principles;
specific state agents such as correspondents and newspaper reading
groups, who were bound by “patron-client” relationship with different
institutions and the press, also learned to push forward the state’s will.
Contrary to existing literature adopting a top-down approach mainly
based on newspaper text-analysis and considering the propaganda
effect as undoubtedly omnipotent, the author used local archives,
memoirs, letters, working records and corresponding periodicals of
newspaper reading groups to show the micro-dynamics of ideology
building. This paper would strengthen understandings of interplay
between agency and ideology in state building.