Ying Qian, "Revolutionary Becomings Documentary Media in Twentieth-Century China," (Columbia University Press, 2024)

From the toppling of the Qing Empire in 1911 to the political campaigns and mass protests in the Mao and post-Mao eras, revolutionary upheavals characterized China’s twentieth century. In Revolutionary Becomings¸ Ying Qian studies documentary film as an “eventful medium” deeply embedded in these upheavals and as a prism to investigate the entwined histories of media and China’s revolutionary movements.With meticulous historical excavation and attention to intermedial practices and transnational linkages, Qian discusses how early media practitioners at the turn of the twentieth century intermingled with rival politicians and warlords as well as civic and business organizations. She reveals the foundational role documentary media played in the Chinese Communist Revolution as a bridge between Marxist theories and Chinese historical conditions. In considering the years after the Communist Party came to power, Qian traces the dialectical relationships between media practice, political relationality, and revolutionary epistemology from production campaigns during the Great Leap Forward to the “class struggles” during the Cultural Revolution and the reorganization of society in the post-Mao decade. Exploring a wide range of previously uninvestigated works and intervening in key debates in documentary studies and film and media history, Revolutionary Becomings provides a groundbreaking assessment of the significance of media to the historical unfolding and actualization of revolutionary movements. East Asian Studies Podcast Chinese History Podcast Revolutionary Becomings by Ying Qian Documentary film in Chinese history Media and revolution in China Chinese Communist Revolution and media Film and media history in China Documentary media in the Cultural Revolution Great Leap Forward media campaigns Revolutionary movements in 20th-century China Marxist theories and Chinese history Political campaigns in Maoist China Cultural Revolution and class struggles Post-Mao era media and society Transnational linkages in Chinese media Early media practitioners in China Media’s role in revolutionary China Chinese historical conditions and Marxism Intermedial practices in Chinese history Documentary studies and Chinese politics Media practice during Maoist campaigns Chinese film history and revolutionary epistemology Revolutionary upheavals in 20th-century China Media and political relationality in China Role of documentary films in social reorganization