MCLC: Maoist Laughter--cfp

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Maoist Laughter–cfp
CFP: Maoist Laughter (edited volume)
Editors:
Jason McGrath (jmcgrath at umn.edu)
Zhuoyi Wang (zwang at hamilton.edu)
Ping Zhu (pingzhu at ou.edu)
Project Description:
Despite the conventional impression of the Maoist period as being oppressive and puritanical, this was actually a period when laughter was bonded with political culture to an unprecedented degree.  Spurred by dynamic political exigencies, many art forms, including literature, cinema, poetry, theatre, and various folk arts, sought to utilize laughter as a more pliable form of political expression. Laughter assumed different modalities and served multiple social functions during the Maoist period. It was used to either highlight antagonism or downplay differences; it could expose and ridicule the class enemy, yet it could also meliorate and conceal contradictions; it could be ritualistic or heartfelt, didactic or cathartic. During the Maoist period, laughter was a crucial social practice for the reproduction of socialist ideology, state-building, and subject-making, though it also had the potential to express unchecked excess or even resistance. Therefore, the art of laughter was carefully moderated and regulated for political ends during this period. For the same reason, a study of Maoist laughter is capable of revealing the diversity, complexity, dynamics, and inner contradictions of the early PRC’s cultural psychology.
The essays in this edited volume form a concerted effort to adopt a more nuanced view of the marriage of laughter and politics during the Maoist period. By teasing out some most representative and interesting examples of the Maoist gelastic politics from various genres and contexts, the contributors of this volume examine the social, political, psychological, and aesthetic models of laughter from a variety of theoretical perspectives.
We welcome essays on less studied art forms in the Maoist period. Interested scholars are encouraged to contact the editors before submitting the abstracts to avoid duplicate topics.
Timeline:
500-word abstracts are due on or before December 15, 2015; full papers are due on or before August 15, 2016.
Ping Zhu <zpdarr at gmail.com>
by denton.2 at osu.edu on July 21, 2015
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