Michel Hockx (Professor of Chinese Literature at University of Notre Dame)

On July 30, 1979, Deng Xiaoping addressed the fourth national conference of Chinese writers and artists. He redefined the relationship between CCP ideologues and creative producers, which had become increasingly politicized during the first thirty years of Communist rule. He also set the template for later “important speeches” on art and literature by Party leaders, which have been a core component of Chinese cultural policy ever since. The talk will engage with these speeches against three discrete backgrounds: the ongoing dismantlement of what was once the “socialist literary system,” the claims made about Chinese censorship and “self-censorship” in American and European public opinion, and the theoretical debates about structural censorship in the field of New Censorship Studies.