Reimagining Revolutionary Labor in the People’s Commune: Amateurism and Social Reproduction in the Maoist Countryside by Angie Baecker A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Asian Languages and Cultures) in the University of Michigan 2020 Doctoral Committee: Professor Xiaobing Tang, Co-Chair, Chinese University of Hong Kong Associate Professor Emily Wilcox, Co-Chair Professor Geoff Eley Professor Rebecca Karl, New York University Associate Professor Youngju Ryu Angie Baecker [email protected] ORCID iD: 0000-0003-0182-0257 © Angie Baecker 2020 Dedication This dissertation is dedicated to my grandmother, Chang-chang Feng 馮張章 (1921– 2016). In her life, she chose for herself the penname Zhang Yuhuan 張宇寰. She remains my guiding star. ii Acknowledgements Nobody writes a dissertation alone, and many people’s labor has facilitated my own. My scholarship has been borne by a great many networks of support, both formal and informal, and indeed it would go against the principles of my work to believe that I have been able to come this far all on my own. Many of the people and systems that have enabled me to complete my dissertation remain invisible to me, and I will only ever be able to make a partial account of all of the support I have received, which is as follows: Thanks go first to the members of my committee. To Xiaobing Tang, I am grateful above all for believing in me. Texts that we have read together in numerous courses and conversations remain cornerstones of my thinking. He has always greeted my most ambitious arguments with enthusiasm, and has pushed me to reach for higher levels of achievement. We began a conversation about modern China seven years ago that I’ve enjoyed immensely, and I look forward to the ones to come. To my dissertation co-chair, Emily Wilcox, I thank you for your effortless professionalism, compassionate criticism, and boundless intellectual energy. Emily has been unfailing in her engagement with my work, and I will be inspired by her model for years to come. Rebecca Karl has been an outsized presence in my life since the fall of 2011, when I walked into a classroom at Tsinghua University expecting a course on modern Chinese literature and instead got a master class on Marxist political economy and the Asiatic mode of production. She has always been my toughest reader, and the savagery of her insight is matched by the depth of her generosity and support. I have always been able to count on Youngju Ryu for incisive feedback, composed candor, and instinctive warmth. She makes everything look easy, and I have iii been touched by the sincerity of her support. I thank Geoff Eley for taking me seriously from the start, for expanding my ability to see modern Chinese through a global lens, and for elevating my level of engagement with scholarship on comparative socialist projects. I am also grateful to all the other faculty and fellows at the University of Michigan who have served as teachers and mentors to me, showing me new ways of thinking and of being: Bill Baxter, Benjamin Brose, Miranda Brown, Pär Cassel, Laurence Coderre, Fang Zhang, Nancy Florida, Sandra Gunning, Christopher Hill, Nico Howson, Reginald Jackson, Tom Kelly, S.E. Kile, Ungsan Kim, Kening Li, Markus Nornes, Douglas Northrop, Anne Rebull, Laura Saslow, Jinyi-Li Stevenson, Will Thomson, Glenn Tiffert, David Rolston, Erick White, and Wang Zheng. At the Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies, my greatest appreciation goes to Carol Stepanchuk, Ena Schlorff, Jen Zhu, and Mary Gallagher. The Center for Chinese Studies not only provided me with generous financial support, but also an open and engaged community. Liangyu Fu at the Harlan Hatcher Asia Library is likely the greatest librarian I will ever know, and I thank her for everything she has done to facilitate my research. I would also like to acknowledge all the help and guidance I have received from staff in the department, including Kim Larrow, Rosalee Washington, Kathryn Beeman, and Ashlee Wolfe. I have been honored to have Tarryn Chun, Fabio Lanza, and Martin J. Powers serve as discussants in chapter workshops. Their insight has transformed my work. I have also benefitted immensely from the comradery of a wide network of peers across academic institutions. We have banded together in different iterations to support and read one another’s work. For their patience, generosity, and insight, I thank Maximilian Alvarez, Maja Babic, Farida Begum, Russell Burge, Chinbo Chong, Blake Miller, Paulina Hartano, Koji Hirata, Joshua Hubbard, Mei Li Inouye, Jaymin Kim, Adrienne Lagman, Peiting C. Li, Nicole Hentrich, Michael Pascual, iv Adrianne Spunaugle, Yihui Sheng, Stephanie Tung, and Trenton Wilson. Louis Cicciarelli of the Sweetland Writing Center was a gentle and expert writing coach during the 2019 Dissertation Writing Institute. Katie Dimmery, Yucong Hao, and Linda Chen Zhang have rescued me and my work many times over. A good reader is hard to find, and I am lucky to have found so many. My time in the department of Asian Languages and Cultures has been enriched by all of my graduate student colleagues. I am proud of the community that we have built together. When I first arrived, Becky Bloom, Martino Dibeltulo, Susan Hwang, Randeep Hothi, Anna Wolcott Johnson, Joseph T. Leach, Kevin Mulholland, Irhe Sohn, and Ignacio Villagran were the most gracious shixiong and shijie I could ask for. Eric Haynie and Melissa van Wyck began their PhDs the same year as me, and I was greatly reassured to be studying in the company of such accomplished and dedicated scholars. Kunisuke Hirano, HaNul Jun, Swarnim Khare, Minna Lee, Ruby MacDougall, Brittany Puller, Cameron White, and Charlotte Chun Lam Yiu each became indispensable the moment they arrived. I owe a special debt of gratitude to Anatoly Detwyler, Gal Gvili, Sophie Volpp, and Wang Hui for their help with my doctoral program applications. Across campus, Rich Bunnell, Jennifer Carman, Conley Chan, Ho Chak Law, Jisoo Lee, Michael Schmale, Mike Thompson-Brusstar, Andrea Valedon, Gerui Wang, and Courtney Wilder have been kind and generous friends. To Lynette Clemetson, Birgit Rieck, and the 2016-2017 class of Knight-Wallace Fellows, thank you from the bottom of my heart for welcoming me into your community while my partner was in residence. I thank Anna Clark in particular for running marathons, real and metaphoric, with me. Pursuing a graduate degree in the humanities often entails frequent and extended travel to different corners of the world. In Hong Kong, I thank Alison Friedman, Natasha Khan, Brian Tsui, Ting Shi, Dan Chinoy, Josh Chin, Gillian Wong, Yidi Zhao, Neil Gough, Natalie Kam, v Nicholas Wong, and Pauline Yao for making me feel at home when I was learning my way around a new place. I especially thank Merlina J. Marikit, whose labor made it possible for me to focus on my writing. In Beijing, an old home that is always newly familiar, I thank Michael Cherney, Du Keke, Julian Fisher, Dong Huang-Cherney, Taku Kurashige, Aimee Lin Yu, Anna Lin-Yip, Liu Rui, Hannah Oussedik, Adrian Sandiford, Aminda Smith, Philip Tinari, Wang Zhongxia, and Yang Beichen. At Peking University, I thank Li Yang and Ren Siqi for indispensable help in facilitating archival research. At the Asia Art Archive, I thank Jane DeBevoise and Hilary Chassé for opening their resources to me. In Taipei, I thank Li-lih Feng. Many networks of kinship, care, and support that either precede or stand outside my time in academia were and remain essential. I thank J.M. Chris Chang, Mackenzie Cooper, Samantha Culp, Mary Dotson, Darius Filsoof, Aaron Gans, Lei Gong, Gazelle Emami, Colin Jones, Alison Klayman, Rei Kobayashi, Michael Levin-Gesundheit, Daniel Liu, Sean Manning, Daniel Ming, Soo Oh, Sharmini Radakrishnan, Anne Ramzy, Samir Shah, Rachael Sherman, Oscar Shine, Kristen Stewart, Stephanie H. Tung, Tanya Vacharkulksemsuk, and Patrick Wen. One of the greatest joys of my adult life has been discovering how the childhood bonds with my cousins have matured into adulthood, and so I also thank Leland Chang, Ellen Chang, Helen Feng, Rex Feng, Alaina Jo, Kimberly Maxcy-Chang, and Curtis Loo for the play and the community that has defined me. I began working with Ariana Leon as a coach nearly three years ago. She has supported me through times of crisis and calm, and I am deeply grateful to everything she continues to teach me. I want to thank my parents, Preston and Li Chi, and my sister, Aileen, and her husband Steve, for always allowing me to come home. Anthropocentric traditions have elided and belittled the importance of non-human actors in our lives, so I would like to acknowledge the big vi role my little dog Mouse plays in my life. Last, Austin Ramzy and I have been following each other across the globe for more than a decade now. Just a few weeks ago, he flew across continents to be with me as I neared the final stages of this project. I am grateful for his love, and for all that we continue to learn together. vii Table of Contents Dedication ....................................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................ iii List of Figures ................................................................................................................................ ix Abstract ..........................................................................................................................................