Red Culture

This chapter considers the production, afterlives and pedagogical values of propaganda posters, books and other forms of material culture from the Mao era and early reform years. Using a recipe book for train staff published in 1978, Howlett explores how material culture provides as an entryway to explore the history of the short-lived Hua Guofeng era (1976-1978). Focusing on book covers after the founding of the PRC, Matten discusses the significance of graphic design and aesthetics, and how they might offer new insights in cultural life, especially for the 1960s and 1970s. Steven F. Jackson explores some of the core ideas that emerge across the University of Westminster’s China Visual Arts Project’s propaganda poster collection and reflects on their pedagogical value in the classroom. Ruichen Zhang looks at how propaganda posters from the Mao era have been variously repackaged as memes across Chinese social media in a wide range of contexts, with a particular focus on the Covid era.

Chapter Contents:

6.1 Recipes for Reform: Smashing the Gang of Four in the Dining Carriage Under Chairman Hua Guofeng
Jon Howlett
6.2 The Art of the Propagandist: Visual Approaches to Understanding Revolutionary China
Steven F. Jackson
6.3 At First Sight – Book Covers of the Mao Era
Marc Matten
6.4 From Propaganda Posters to Covid Memes: Repackaging Chinese Posters in the Digital Age
Ruichen Zhang