Revolutionary Echoes: Chinese-Language Radio in the Cold War Era

Full Talk Title: Revolutionary Echoes: Chinese-Language Radio in the Cold War Era - A Talk by Jie Li

For non-Columbia affiliates, registration is required to access the Morningside campus. After registering you will receive an email with a QR code that must be presented along with a valid government-issued ID (your name must match exactly the name registered for the event) at either the 116th Street & Broadway or 116th Street & Amsterdam gates for entry. Please register using a unique email address (one email address per registrant) by 4:00pm on Oct. 29 for campus access.

Names will be submitted for QR codes 1-2 days prior to the event. Registrants will receive an email from CU Guest Access with the QR code before or on the day of the event. NOTE: You cannot access campus using the QR code from Eventbrite.

Speaker: Jie Li, Ford Foundation Professor of East Asian Studies, Harvard University

Moderator: Ying Qian, Associate Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures, East Asian Languages & Cultures, Columbia University

What did the Chinese revolution sound like, and can we still hear its echoes today? This talk examines how sound broadcasting shaped mass movements, amplifying both utopian promises and dystopian violence, and how Cold War radio traveled across geopolitical borders. I analyze Mao-era radios and loudspeakers in fictional films as media history, then present rare recordings of PRC radio from Hong Kong to consider what sonic archives reveal beyond texts.

Speaker's Bio: Jie Li is the Ford Foundation Professor of East Asian Studies at Harvard University. She is the author of Shanghai Homes: Palimpsests of Private Life (2014), Utopian Ruins: A Memorial Museum of the Mao Era (2020), and Cinematic Guerrillas: Propaganda, Projectionists, and Audiences in Socialist China (2023). She also co-edited the volume Red Legacies in China: Cultural Afterlives of the Communist Revolution and has published numerous articles in film, literary, museum, and sound studies.

This event is hosted by the Weatherhead East Asian Institute.