China Reading Group RIW

October 25 | Book Discussion

Weiser Hall 447 and Zoom | 3.00 – 4.30 pm

Moderator: Gengrun Li (Center for Southeast Asian Studies, International Institute)

Book Title: Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing (2015). The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins. Princeton University Press. [Link]

Format: Hybrid with refreshments for in-person participants

November 8 | Book Discussion & Guest Session

Weiser Hall 447 and Zoom | 3.00 – 4.30 pm       

Moderator: Xianni Zhang (Department of Sociology)

Guest: Ho-fung Hung (Department of Sociology, Johns Hopkins University) [Link]

Book Title: Ho-fung Hung (2011). Protest with Chinese Characteristics: Demonstrations, Riots, and Petitions in the Mid-Qing Dynasty. Columbia University Press. [Link]

Format: Hybrid with refreshments for in-person participants

This talk explores the intricate dance between state power and global cultural production, reconceptualizing censorship as an ongoing, social process. Drawing on ethnographic research within a global film studio and interviews with rarely accessed industry insiders in Beijing and Los Angeles, it shows how China’s rigid censorship system reshapes Hollywood’s creative process. First, it reveals how China’s state censors use multistage gatekeeping and intermediated censorship to exert global influence. It then shows how informality transforms these organizational procedures into a relational process that is hard to trace. In this, studio executives and filmmakers engage in complicit creativity, seeking creative negotiations through working with, rather than against, the state. By exposing the hidden, informal interactions between censors and creators, this talk uncovers a co-constructed “culture of censorship” that deepens our understanding of the inner workings of state intervention in the new global cultural economy. The talk is based on a 2024 article published in the American Sociological Review.