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ICS Lecture: Poshek Fu, "The Politics of Entertainment: Cinematic Cold War in Hong Kong"

Poshek Fu
October 23, 2015
3:40PM - 5:00PM
Mendenhall Laboratory, Room 129 (125 S Oval Mall)

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Add to Calendar 2015-10-23 15:40:00 2015-10-23 17:00:00 ICS Lecture: Poshek Fu, "The Politics of Entertainment: Cinematic Cold War in Hong Kong" nstitute for Chinese Studies presents the "China and the International Mediasphere" Lecture Series "The Politics of Entertainment: Cinematic Cold War in Hong Kong"Professor Poshek FuDepartment of HistoryUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Flyer: (forthcoming)Abstract:falseThe Cold War was a total war. New scholarship on the Cold War has moved beyond the emphasis on elite politics, international diplomacy or military dimensions to study the cultural dynamic of the global conflicts. My talk follows this “cultural turn” to explore the missing dimension of the Cold War in Asia: the cinematic battle in colonial Hong Kong. Focusing on the “state-private” network of postwar Mandarin-language cinema, it discusses the role of popular entertainment in the battle between China, Taiwan, and the United States to win the “hearts and minds” of the ethnic Chinese communities in the region. It also discusses the ambiguous ways in which the bipolar conflicts influenced the debate about modernity and cultural tradition. Bio:Poshek Fu is Professor of History and Law at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is also the Zijiang Professor at the East China Normal University. He received his Ph.D. from Stanford University. His research focuses on modern China, with emphasis on film history, Cold War cultural history, and the interaction between war and culture. He has received several national fellowships including, most recently, the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and Fulbright Scholar. His publications include China Forever: Shaw Brothers and Diasporic Cinema (Illinois 2008), Between Shanghai and Hong Kong: The Politics of Chinese Cinemas (Stanford 2003), Passivity, Resistance, and Collaboration: Intellectual Choices in Occupied Shanghai, 1937-1945 (Stanford 1993), which have been translated into Chinese. Co-sponsors: Department of History, The Film Studies Program, and Department of East Asian Languages and LiteraturesThis event is sponsored in part by a U.S. Department of Education Title VI grant for The Ohio State University East Asian Studies Center.    Mendenhall Laboratory, Room 129 (125 S Oval Mall) Department of East Asian Languages and Literature deall@osu.edu America/New_York public

nstitute for Chinese Studies presents the "China and the International Mediasphere" Lecture Series

"The Politics of Entertainment: Cinematic Cold War in Hong Kong"

Professor Poshek Fu
Department of History
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

 

Flyer: (forthcoming)


Abstract:
falseThe Cold War was a total war. New scholarship on the Cold War has moved beyond the emphasis on elite politics, international diplomacy or military dimensions to study the cultural dynamic of the global conflicts. My talk follows this “cultural turn” to explore the missing dimension of the Cold War in Asia: the cinematic battle in colonial Hong Kong. Focusing on the “state-private” network of postwar Mandarin-language cinema, it discusses the role of popular entertainment in the battle between China, Taiwan, and the United States to win the “hearts and minds” of the ethnic Chinese communities in the region. It also discusses the ambiguous ways in which the bipolar conflicts influenced the debate about modernity and cultural tradition. 

Bio:
Poshek Fu is Professor of History and Law at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is also the Zijiang Professor at the East China Normal University. He received his Ph.D. from Stanford University. His research focuses on modern China, with emphasis on film history, Cold War cultural history, and the interaction between war and culture. He has received several national fellowships including, most recently, the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and Fulbright Scholar. His publications include China Forever: Shaw Brothers and Diasporic Cinema (Illinois 2008), Between Shanghai and Hong Kong: The Politics of Chinese Cinemas (Stanford 2003), Passivity, Resistance, and Collaboration: Intellectual Choices in Occupied Shanghai, 1937-1945 (Stanford 1993), which have been translated into Chinese.
 

Co-sponsors: Department of History, The Film Studies Program, and Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures

This event is sponsored in part by a U.S. Department of Education Title VI grant for The Ohio State University East Asian Studies Center.