HUAS95025 - Literary and Film Censorship in Contemporary China

Course Description

The frequent banning of books and films in China has reinforced a vision of Chinese censorship as a very strict system. This course explores literary and film censorship in China from the 1980s to the present to complicate this vision. The course will introduce the institutions of Chinese censorship, their history, and politics to understand how censorship has developed over time and in relation to political changes. By focusing on a number of banned Chinese novels and films, we will reflect critically on the complexity of Chinese censorship and how censorship has affected the production, the distribution, and the reception of Chinese literature and film, inside and outside China. The discussion aims at obtaining a nuanced understanding of Chinese censorship that takes into account the range of competing individual, national, political, and commercial interests at play in the system of censorship.