Peidong Sun (CERI, Science Po Paris), Puck Engman (University of Freiburg/UC Berkeley)

Politics has always had an impact on readership in a given society. In the Maoist China, the degree of political controls over the practices of reading and communication becomes particularly intense. The third session of the ReadChina Freiburg online lecture series, "Practices of Reading in the PRC", will reach this topic from the angles of the receivers and the reception/dissemination processes of political forces. The first talk, given by Dr. Peidong Sun, discusses the state censorship on personal readings during the Cultural Revolution, with further suggestions on the limitations of censorship in the everyday life and reading. The second talk, given by Dr. Puck Engman, suggests an understanding of political communication in a context of “decoding.” A top-secret bulletin for the political elites will be discussed as a case, with a focus on how the intelligence provided through this bulletin is circulated and consumed.