Exhibiting the Past: Historical Memory and the Politics of Museums in Postsocialist China

Preface and Acknowledgments

vii Preface and Acknowledgments Back in 1999, I was invited by colleagues to contribute a paper to a confer­ ence called Visual Art as Cultural Memory in China. My research to that point had been entirely in the field of Republican-era literary studies. I had almost no academic experience working in the visual arts, and I was struggling to come up with an interesting and viable topic when I stumbled on a book of revolutionary history paintings housed in the Museum of the Chinese Revolution in Beijing. Intrigued by the paintings, I presented a paper at the conference on their visual rhetoric and its relation to politicized constructions of history. In writing about these paintings, I started thinking about the context in which they were displayed and exhibited to the public: the museum. Thus began a long foray into what for me was foreign academic territory . Museum studies is inherently interdisciplinary, so my entry into this new scholarly terrain has involved extensive reading in fields I knew little about and some I never even knew existed. I’ve read in museological theory, of course, but also in architecture, urban planning, cartography, tourism, and the like. It has been a long and rewarding journey, and needless to say many people helped make the arrival possible. I would like to thank the following for their financial support, without which the many research trips to and within China (and Taiwan and Hong Kong) would certainly not have been possible: CIES (Fulbright), National Taiwan Chung Hsing University Research Center for Humanities and Social Sciences (and especially Prof. Chiu Kuei-fen), OSU Arts and Humanities Seed Grant, OSU College of Arts and Sciences, and the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures (DEALL). In particular, I would like to thank David Adams, Adam Broder, and Keith Clemenger of CIES, Mari Noda and Richard Torrance (of DEALL), and Sebastian Knowles. I am most grateful to Yin Tongyun (formerly of the Institute of Chinese Archaeology and Art, Tsinghua University) for her assistance during a prolonged research stay in Beijing. My gratitude goes to the following individuals for taking time to meet with me and for their subsequent follow-ups: Su Donghai and Wang Jie (National Museum of China), Tang Xiaohui (Memorial Hall of the People’s War of Resistance against Japan), Fan Jianchuan and Liu Ronghua (Jianchuan Museum Cluster), Simon S. P. Chang and Joyce T. Wang (Ralph Applebaum Associates), Fu Yunqing and Tao Jing (National Film Museum), Xia Zhihui, Chen Annian, and Peng Xingjian (Deng Xiaoping Memorial Hall), Dawn Tong (Jack Rouse Associates), Zhang Ruiqiang viii Preface and Acknowledgments (September 18 History Museum), Lu Xingjiang (Museum of Taiwan Prehistory), and Jiang Yixin (Shanghai Lu Xun Museum). I am also grateful to Professor Wen Fong for his support. Special thanks are due Su-hsing Lin, Zhang Rui, Julia Starr, Heather Inwood, and Li Guoqing (Chinese Librarian at OSU), who facilitated my research in multiple ways and helped me gather research materials. Peng Xiaolian helped with critical introductions. Thanks also to my parents-in-law, Bi Qing and Li Jinghe, for helping me during stays in Guangzhou and for sending useful materials. I thank the following scholars for their assistance on research questions, comments on conference presentations, and/or sharing their work, sometimes unpublished: Mark Bender, Tami Blumenfield, Lisa Claypool, Cathryn Clayton, Peter Conn, Robert Culp, Fa-ti Fan, Susan Fernsebner, James Flath, Joshua Fogel, Edward Friedman, Peter Gries, Gu Yizhong, Anne Hennings, James Hevia, Eliza Ho, Chang-tai Hung, Jiang Yixin, Ian Johnson, Jane Ju, Nicholas Kaldis, Jeffrey Kingston, Jeffrey Kinkley, Marc Matten, Jiayin Mi, Rana Mitter, Beth Notar, Timothy Oakes, Elizabeth Perry, James Polachek, Lisa Rebillard-Lopane, Hai Ren, Sigrid Schmalzer, Keith Schoppa, Bert Scruggs, Dan Shao, Kun Shi, Weijie Song, Kristin Stapleton, Julia Strauss, Xiaobin Tang, Akiko Takenaka, Karen Thornber, Xiaojue Wang, Rubie Watson, Chu-jen Wu, Marzia Varutti, Edward Vickers, Zhang Weihong, and Zhang Xiaosong. I also thank the filmmaker Jian Yi for sending me a copy of his film New Socialist Climax. My thanks also to the following for inviting me to share my research at their universities and at conferences: Jie Li and Enhua Zhang; Xiaojue Wang; Denise Ho and Liang Luo; Joshua Howard; Susan Naquin and Qin Shao; Dorothy Noyes and Alice Conklin; Julia Strauss and Michel Hockx; Xiaomei Chen and Julia F. Andrews; Chiu Kuei-fen; Lisa Claypool; Eugenia Lean and Weihong Bao; and Peng Hsiao-yen. I also thank the members of the MCLC LIST community who responded...