“Tibet as Method: Reimagining Marginalized Narratives and Religious Representations in Ma Yuan’s Fiction” explores Ma Yuan’s narrative of Tibet, focusing on the trauma and identity issue among marginalized ethnic group. “Violence as Form: The Language Problem and Postmodern Experience in Yu Hua’s Experimental Fiction” analyzes Yu Hua’s experimental representation of violence as a resistance to sublime history. “Music as Everyday Resistance: Political Everydayness of People in Maoist China and After” interprets Teresa Teng’s pop songs as political dissent to Maoist propaganda, which subverts the revolutionary narrative through everyday resistance. “Palimpsests of Revolution: Heroic Romance, Scars, and Memory Politics in Twenty-first-century Transmedia Popular Narratives” examines the intertextual device of palimpsest in the TV drama Drawing Sword, arguing that the popular media engages dynamic discourses on historically sensitive subjects and serves as a constant invitation to revisit the past.
The intellectual coherence of these papers emerges through their shared commitment to exploring how diverse cultural forms—experimental fiction, avant-garde narratives, musical practices, and popular transmedia storytelling—serve as vehicles for processing historical trauma and articulating resistance. Each paper identifies specific formal strategies and representational techniques through which artists and citizens have challenged dominant socialist narratives. Together, they reveal how cultural production becomes a crucial arena for working through collective trauma and contesting authoritarian interpretations of history.
A particularly significant thread connecting these papers is their attention to the politics of form. Whether examining linguistic violence in experimental fiction, religious reimaginations in avant-garde narratives, musical resistance in everyday life, or intertextual layering in popular culture, each study demonstrates how formal innovations enable critical engagements with socialist legacies that might otherwise be suppressed. These papers collectively argue that attention to form is essential for understanding how trauma and resistance operate in post-socialist cultural contexts. By foregrounding various aesthetic forms upon the interplay of collective memory, historical trauma, and power dynamics, our panel engages with while expanding the existing scholarship on post-socialist Chinese literature and cultural studies. Critically drawing on diverse cultural practices across literature and popular culture, it offers multifaceted perspectives on the cultural and intellectual transformations of China’s post-socialist era.
This 75-minute session, moderated by a chair, balances in-depth presentations with audience engagement. The structure is as follows:
- Presentations (60 minutes total)
Each of the four presenters will speak for 15 minutes, with the chair providing clear time signals (e.g., a 2-minute warning) to ensure adherence.
To maximize efficiency, presenters will transition immediately after concluding their remarks, with no extended pauses.
- Unstructured Discussion (15 minutes)
The final 15 minutes will prioritize open dialogue. The chair will pose synthesizing questions to spark audience participation and mediate exchanges between attendees and presenters.
Our session highlights diverse voices across generations, genders, geographies, and disciplines. Featuring both junior scholars—PhD students and recent graduates—and a senior professor, we foster an intergenerational exchange of ideas. As an all-female panel of Asian researchers, we also contribute to gender equity in scholarly discourse. Our institutional affiliations span three continents—North America, Asia, and Australia—enabling a truly global conversation. Additionally, our interdisciplinary backgrounds in literature, history, and cultural studies enrich the discussion, fostering a multifaceted reexamination of post-socialist China’s literary and social landscape. By embracing geographic, disciplinary, and generational diversity, this session promotes a more inclusive and dynamic academic environment at MLA.