Tertulia Logo
Sign upLog In
Cart Icon0
Cart Icon0
The co-op bookstore for avid readers
Book Cover for: Newborn Socialist Things: Materiality in Maoist China, Laurence Coderre

Newborn Socialist Things: Materiality in Maoist China

Laurence Coderre

Paperback
Regular price$27.95With free membership trial$13.9850% off your first book+ Free shipping
In Stock– Ships within one business day

Do you recommend this book?

Yes!

No

Contemporary China is seen as a place of widespread commodification and consumerism, while the preceeding Maoist Cultural Revolution is typically understood as a time when goods were scarce and the state criticized what little consumption was possible. Indeed, with the exception of the likeness and words of Mao Zedong, both the media and material culture of the Cultural Revolution are often characterized as a void out of which the postsocialist world of commodity consumption miraculously sprang fully formed. In Newborn Socialist Things, Laurence Coderre explores the material culture of the Cultural Revolution to show how it paved the way for commodification in contemporary China. Examining objects ranging from retail counters and porcelain statuettes to textbooks and vanity mirrors, she shows how the project of building socialism in China has always been intimately bound up with consumption. By focusing on these objects--or "newborn socialist things"--along with the Cultural Revolution's media environment, discourses of materiality, and political economy, Coderre reconfigures understandings of the origins of present-day China.

Book Details

  • Publisher: Duke University Press
  • Publish Date: Aug 6th, 2021
  • Pages: 264
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 9.00in - 6.00in - 0.55in - 0.78lb
  • EAN: 9781478014300
  • Categories: • Asia - China• Media Studies

About the Author

Laurence Coderre is Assistant Professor of East Asian Studies at New York University.

What people are saying

Praise for this book

"Laurence Coderre takes ordinary objects from everyday life to create extraordinary insights into the Mao era and China today. Her book is a true tour de force in contemporary Chinese studies."--Paul Clark, author of "Youth Culture in China: From Red Guards to Netizens"
"Laurence Coderre's serious engagement with theories of materiality rooted in deeply historicized practices, relations, and things provides a politically powerful rethinking of Marxism, culture, and materiality. This superb book will be of immense interest not only to scholars in Chinese studies and Asian studies, but also to those in cultural studies, visual and material culture, sound studies, comparative socialism, Cold War studies, and Marxism."--Tina Mai Chen, coeditor of "The Material of World History"
"Newborn Socialist Things is a tour de force: fascinating, inspiring, and challenging. It is a must-read for anyone interested in socialist (and postsocialist) China, its material culture, and its materiality."--Jennifer Altehenger "Journal of Asian Studies" (5/1/2022 12:00:00 AM)
"Brilliant and pathbreaking."--Michael Dutton "The China Quarterly" (10/28/2022 12:00:00 AM)
"Well written and engaging. . . . Newborn Socialist Things is an accomplished, meticulously researched, and fascinating book that will be of interest to scholars of all forms of cultural production in Mao-era China."--Amy Jane Barnes "Pacific Affairs" (3/2/2023 12:00:00 AM)

What people are saying

See more