REVOLUTIONARY IDENTITIES - A STUDY OF AESTHETICS AND THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

Abstract

The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution which took place in China from 1966 to 1976 was a decade where Maoism as the dominant ideology, controlled every facet of Chinese society. The revolution was inherently cultural, as it was the first time that arts and culture were used extensively as an ideological apparatus. Under the intense scrutiny of an increasingly political landscape, the people of China found themselves taking on new social identities. This thesis examines the presentation of Cultural Revolution identities through the material presentation of everyday life. I discuss the creation of these identities with a study of Maoist aesthetics in revolutionary rhetoric, memoirs, and the model plays. By examining cultural products in relation to the creation of social identity, I will attempt to trace the multifaceted and complicated nature of identity during the Cultural Revolution as a material experience.