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UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Making the Censored Public: The 1989 Tiananmen Square Protests in Chinese Fiction and Film Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3z36z6j4 Author Chen, Thomas Chen Publication Date 2016 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Making the Censored Public: The 1989 Tiananmen Square Protests in Chinese Fiction and Film A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Comparative Literature by Thomas Chen Chen 2016 © Copyright by Thomas Chen Chen 2016 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Making the Censored Public: The 1989 Tiananmen Square Protests in Chinese Fiction and Film by Thomas Chen Chen Doctor of Philosophy in Comparative Literature University of California, Los Angeles, 2016 Professor Kirstie M. McClure, Co-Chair Professor Robert Yee-Sin Chi, Co-Chair Initiated by Beijing college students, the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests—"Tiananmen"— shook all of China with their calls for democratic and social reforms. They were violently repressed by the Chinese state on June 4, 1989. Since then, their memory has been subject within the country to two kinds of censorship. First, a government campaign promulgating the official narrative of Tiananmen, while simultaneously forbidding all others, lasted into 1991. What followed was the surcease of Tiananmen propaganda and an expansion of silencing to nearly all mentions that has persisted to this day. My dissertation examines fiction and film that evoke Tiananmen from within mainland China and Hong Kong. It focuses on materials that are particularly open to a self-reflexive reading, such as literature in which the protagonists are writers and films shot without authorization that in their editing indicate the precarious ii circumstances of their making. These works act out the contestation between the state censorship of Tiananmen-related discourse on the one hand and its alternative imagination on the other, thereby opening up a discursive space, however fragile, for a Chinese audience to reconfigure a historical memory whose physical space is off limits. The dissertation is organized historically by time, place, and medium. Chapter 1 focuses on a Chinese state-sponsored collection of literary reportage published shortly after the June Fourth crackdown that, in my rereading today when the entire state literature on Tiananmen is itself marginalized, allows for an untimely commemoration of the protests. Chapter 2 looks at the same immediate post-June Fourth period in a Hong Kong approaching the 1997 reversion to Chinese sovereignty, analyzing the recoding of Tiananmen in two audiovisual works, in particular, that question the possibility of a Hong Kong public in the face of collusive pressure from Chinese and British authorities. Chapters 3 and 4 consider fiction and film, respectively, that illustrate the historicity and medium specificity of censorship and its contestation. The two mainland novels that I read in Chapter 3, one published in print and the other online, create sites both where the elided memory of 1989 can reenter and where a participatory readership can emerge. Chapter 4 concerns two fiction-features whose different trajectories of production and exhibition across the mainland-Hong Kong divide demonstrate the Chinese state's continual displacement of Tiananmen. As a whole, the four chapters reveal the dual aspect of censorship and its effects, both the authorized pronouncements that set its terms of engagement in making the censored public (Chapter 1) as well as the unauthorized reworkings generated within its sphere of influence that make the censored public (Chapters 2-4). iii The dissertation of Thomas Chen Chen is approved. Efraín Kristal Kirstie M. McClure, Committee Co-Chair Robert Yee-Sin Chi, Committee Co-Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2016 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract of the Dissertation……………………………………………………………………..ii Acknowledgments……………………………………………………………………………….vi Vita…………………………………………………………………………………………….....ix Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………1 Scope and argument; Literature review and contribution; Roadmap to the dissertation Chapter 1: Untimely Commemoration: Reading State Publications on Tiananmen Now...18 Propagating the protests; The benighted crowd; History lessons; Scar literature Chapter 2: Perilous Public: Displacing Hong Kong After Tiananmen……………………..52 Nowhere in particular; Radical reactions; June Fourth as Hong Kong's 228; Public and republic Chapter 3: Exhibiting Prohibition: Literary Responses from Print to Online……………..88 The literary marketplace; The squares in question; Reconstituting the public; The advent of the internet; The workshop of the world; From book to blog; In parentheses Chapter 4: The Public Betrayed: Filming Tiananmen in a Privatizing China……………138 Tenses in tension; The disappeared body; Splitting up; "Just background"; From comrades to cronies; Inconsequent cutting Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………..200 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………………...205 v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost, I would like to thank the members of my committee. Kirstie McClure has been an unwavering fountain of support since my first year at UCLA. Her dedication to scholarship and to her students is unparalleled. I can never hope to repay the countless hours she lavished upon me. Robert Chi has shown me in the classroom, in his office, and over the phone how to be the best teacher, reader, and writer I can be. No matter how serious and substantive our conversations were, he always injected therein a sense of humor and levity. Efraín Kristal has served as a role model throughout my graduate years. I will always appreciate his scholarly acumen, his level-headed wisdom, and the generosity of his friendship. Not only are their imprints on every page of this dissertation, all three have contributed immensely to the kind of scholar, teacher, and person I am today. I am grateful to many other people at UCLA that made my seven years memorable. Katherine King was always ready to lend a hand in times of need. Shu-mei Shih is a paragon of theoretical acuity. A dear friend and interlocutor, Wang Chaohua continues to inspire me with her engaged scholarship. Perry Anderson's intellectual vigor and rigor as well as sparkling conversation are a source of awe and joy. Aamir Mufti couldn't have prepared me better for the next step in my career. Michelle Anderson and Jessika Herrara went out of their way to make sure things ran smoothly. I want to thank my friends in the Department of Comparative Literature for years of laughter and conversation. Yu-ting Huang, Nasia Anam, Tim Haehn, and Jordan Smith paved the way. I am truly lucky to enter with such a smart, funny, and good- hearted cohort in Nic Testerman, Alexei Nowak, Dana Linda, and Safoora Arbab. The late Michael Henry Heim is a legend, an incomparable translator who was at the same time the most vi learned and giving person. He will be remembered. There are many people I wish to thank beyond UCLA. Richard Klein swept me off my feet at Cornell—and at Arles. Bernard Sichère of Université Paris-Diderot has been an enduring mentor and friend. I wouldn't be where I am today without Ban Wang at Stanford, who first took me under his wing. Song Mingwei's generosity is matched only by his humility. There's nobody better to talk about Jia Pingwa with than Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia Lin. Andrew Clark is a committed translator and an erudite reader. I also want to thank the members of the Philadelphia Reading Group (费城读书组), before whom I presented parts of my ongoing work. Guobin Yang of Penn has helped me left and right during my time in Philadelphia. I would like to thank several institutions for their financial support: the Confucius Institute, UCLA's Graudate Division, and the UCLA Department of Comparative Literaure. Earlier versions of Chapter 2 were published as "Blanks to be Filled: Public-Making and the Censorship of Jia Pingwa's Decadent Capital," China Perspectives 2015/1, 15-22; and "The Workshop of the World: Censorship and the Internet Novel Such Is This World," in China's Contested Internet, ed. Guobin Yang (Copenhagen: NIAS Press, 2015), 19-43. I thank the editors and reviewers for their generous evaluations. Portions of this dissertation were also presented at several venues, such as the University of Pennsylvania, Penn State, and the Association for Asian Studies annual conference. I thank the organizers and participants for their comments and suggestions. Finally, I would like to thank my family and friends for their love and support over the years. My parents have given me the freedom to find my path. My aunt Eva Chun is filled with selfless love. My cousins Liya and Su got me materials when I couldn't be in China. Ryan Gutiérrez is the best friend I could ask for. My wife Winnie has gone through this journey with me every step of the way. Her love sustains me. This dissertation is dedicated to my grandmother Wang vii Shuying and to the memory of my grandfather Liu Yun, who are responsible for the best within me. They took such good care of a boy of not yet six that he had no idea what was going on in Beijing 1989. viii VITA 2005 B.A., Comparative Literature and English, Cornell University 2009-10 UCLA Dean’s Fellowship 2010 UCLA Graduate Summer Research Mentorship 2010-12 Teaching Assistant, Comparative Literature, UCLA 2011 M.A., Comparative Literature, UCLA 2012 UCLA Graduate Summer Research Mentorship UCLA Comparative Literature departmental summer funding 2012-13 UCLA Dean’s Fellowship 2013-14 Confucius Institute Sino-Foreign Joint PhD Scholarship 2014 Teaching Fellow, Comparative Literature, UCLA 2015 Teaching Assistant, Asian Languages & Cultures, UCLA PUBLICATIONS "The Workshop of the World: Censorship and the Internet Novel Such Is This World." In China's Contested Internet, ed. Guobin Yang (Copenhagen: NIAS Press, 2015), 19-43. "Blanks to be Filled: Public-Making and the Censorship of Jia Pingwa's Decadent Capital," China Perspectives 2015/1, 15-22.