Embodying Maoism: The swimming craze, the Mao cult, and body politics in Communist China, 1950s–1970s

2019 ◽  
Vol 53 (05) ◽  
pp. 1450-1485
Author(s):  
SHUK-WAH POON
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
The Body ◽  
Body Politics ◽  
Political Values ◽  
Political Performance ◽  
Constructive Process ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
Communist China ◽  
The Masses ◽  
New Phase

AbstractMao Zedong's historic swim in the Yangtze River on 16 July 1966, which heralded a new phase of the Cultural Revolution, was a carefully staged political performance and a notable example of body politics in Communist China. Beginning in the late 1950s, Mao began to broadcast the idea that he was a keen swimmer and to convince the masses to take up swimming. The swim was the climax of those efforts and an integral part of the Mao cult. Swimming in Mao's China offers a useful lens for understanding the close relationship between sports, the body, and politics. Swimming was a means for Mao to mobilize mass support for his political authority and a venue for the masses to practise and perform Maoism. This article examines the constructive process and meanings of Mao's swimming body, and the extent to which the bodies of the populace were regulated through the mass-swimming craze. Drawing on untapped archival materials related to mass swimming in Mao's China, this article argues that swimming both solidified and destabilized the Mao cult and became a venue through which political values were shaped, indoctrinated, contested, and repudiated.

The Formation of National Society in Communist China: The Convergence of Traditions

1971 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 467-488 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert E. Bedeski
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Chinese Mainland ◽  
Institutional Arrangements ◽  
National Society ◽  
Communist China ◽  
Future Direction ◽  
People's Congress ◽  
New Phase

Since the events of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in Communist China, a crucial question has been whether the structures of the state can survive intact after the passing of Mao Tse-tung from the scene. The emergence of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) as a strategic political force and the reconstitution of the Chinese Communist Party in 1969 point to the possibility that China has entered into a new phase of political development insofar as institutional arrangements are concerned. Hints that the National People's Congress may be reconvened can also be taken as indications that major changes will have to be ratified. In short, something of a constitutional crisis or its equivalent has occurred on the Chinese mainland. The future direction of Peking policy may well be determined by the way in which this crisis is settled.

Personhood and youth-making in contemporary Indigenous Amazonia

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pirjo Kristiina Virtanen ◽  
Alessandra Severino da Silva Manchinery
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Global South ◽  
The Body ◽  
Body Politics ◽  
Indigenous Youth ◽  
Social Responsibilities ◽  
Brazilian Amazonia ◽  
University Studies ◽  
Social Belonging ◽  
Indigenous Voices

This essay looks at the construction of personhood in Brazilian Amazonia from the perspective of Indigenous youth. In Amazonian sociocosmology, personhood is constructed relationally, a process in which the body is a distinctive factor. Consequently, during schooling and university studies, young people have responded to and resisted representations and policies that have often silenced Indigenous voices and limited their fabrication of bodies. The contemporary social responsibilities of Indigenous youth and the challenges faced in undertaking them shape how their subjectivity, agency, and recognized social belonging are being constantly increased, removed, or even denied. The essay draws from anthropological theories of relational personhood, as well as ideas of geo- and body-politics present in theorizing on the Global South.

The Concept of Decentralization in Document No. 1, 1984

1985 ◽  
Vol 101 ◽  
pp. 104-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joyce Kallgren
Keyword(s):  
Political Economics ◽  
The Political ◽  
Communist Country ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
Classic Work ◽  
System A ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
Communist China ◽  
Responsibility System

H. F. Schurmann observed in his classic work Ideology and Organization in Communist China, “economics in a Communist country means political economics hence administration.” This observation directs our attention to two specific aspects of Document No. 1, 1984: first, the possible political consequences of decentralization and secondly, some administration reforms that have accompanied the adoption of the agricultural responsibility system. A close relationship obviously exists between the two aspects, the emphasis here being placed on the political side.

Further data on Iranian marine nematode diversity, with description of three new Desmodoridae Filipjev, 1922 (Nematoda: Desmodorida) species from the Persian Gulf

Nematology ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Azadeh Gharahkhani ◽  
Ebrahim Pourjam ◽  
Daniel Leduc ◽  
Majid Pedram
Keyword(s):  
Persian Gulf ◽  
Buccal Cavity ◽  
First Record ◽  
The Body ◽  
Pharyngeal Bulb ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
Nematode Diversity ◽  
Males And Females ◽  
The Persian Gulf ◽  
Amphidial Fovea

Summary The Desmodoridae is a diverse and widespread family of free-living nematodes. Here, we provide the first record of the group in the Persian Gulf and describe three new species: Metachromadoroides sinuspersici sp. n., Zalonema iranicum sp. n. and Z. supplementorum sp. n. Metachromadoroides sinuspersici sp. n. is characterised by finely annulated cuticle, short and stout cephalic sensilla, amphidial fovea on cuticular thickening, pharyngeal bulb well developed and partitioned into three sections, absence of precloacal supplements, and presence of 6-8 pairs of rounded postcloacal papillae. Zalonema iranicum sp. n. is characterised by papilliform subcephalic sensilla (best observed with SEM), convex cephalic capsule, large multispiral amphidial fovea with 4-5 turns in both males and females, buccal cavity with one ventrosublateral and two dorsal teeth and posterior body of males with lateral alae extending from the last third of the body to the cloacal aperture and ventral alae extending 1395-2250 μm anterior to the cloacal aperture, and no precloacal supplements. Zalonema supplementorum sp. n. is characterised by four subcephalic sensilla 1-2 μm long, multispiral amphidial fovea with three turns in both males and females, buccal cavity with one dorsal and two ventrosublateral teeth, males with lateral alae present on each side of body from posterior half of body to cloacal aperture, ventral alae extending 942-1257 μm anterior to cloacal aperture, strongly cuticularised spicules 41-43 μm long, and 12-16 precloacal supplements. Near full length SSU and partial D2-D3 LSU sequences are provided for M. sinuspersici sp. n. and Z. iranicum sp. n., and the COI sequence is provided for Z. iranicum. The SSU phylogeny suggests a close relationship between M. sinuspersici sp. n. and Metachromadora and Metachromadoroides species and the monophyly of Zalonema (after currently available data). The LSU phylogeny suggests an affinity between Metachromadoroides and Zalonema with Spirinia and Acanthopharynx, respectively.

The time–space tactics of Chinese Buddhist and Taoist believers under state–religion tension

2021 ◽  
pp. 0920203X2110609
Author(s):  
Wing Chung Ho ◽  
Lin Li
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Regulatory Control ◽  
Religious Revival ◽  
State Regulations ◽  
Authoritarian State ◽  
Time Space ◽  
Ethnographic Observation ◽  
Communist China ◽  
Ruling Party

This study explores the experience of elderly rural Buddhist and Taoist believers in communist China where the ruling party has maintained decades-long regulatory control over religion. Based on ethnographic observation and oral histories, the analysis begins with how the actors made sense of and coped in their relationship with the state during the fieldwork period (May–June 2020) when state regulations restricted public religious practice because of COVID-19. The analysis then looks back on how practitioners experienced tightening state ideological control from the early 2010s to before COVID-19; further back at the religious revival during the opening and reform (1980s–2010s); and finally, the Cultural Revolution period (1960s–70s) when strict atheistic measures were imposed. Their narratives reveal the practical logic (habitus) which practitioners used to mediate their resistance against and compromise with the authoritarian state. Specifically, four logical modes that involve actors’ different time–space tactics were identified, namely state–religion disengagement, state–religion enhancement, religious (dis)enlightenment, and karma. The implications of these ostensibly conflicting modes of thinking in mediating the actors’ resistance–compliance interface in contemporary China are discussed.

scholarly journals Li3Al2, eine neue Phase im System Li/Al / Li3Al2, a New Phase in the System Li/Al

1973 ◽  
Vol 28 (9-10) ◽  
pp. 600-605 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karl-Friedrich Tebbe ◽  
Hans Georg Schnering ◽  
Barbara Rüter ◽  
Gisela Rabeneck
Keyword(s):  
Unit Cell ◽  
The Body ◽  
X Ray Diffraction ◽  
X Ray ◽  
Structural Relation ◽  
New Phase

Besides ‘Li2Al’ which was recently shown to be the phase Li9Al4 there exists the phase Li3Al2 characterized by preparation and X-ray diffraction methods. It cristallizes with a rhomboedric unit cell, R3̄m, a = 4.508 Å, c = 14.26 Å and z = 3 formula units (hexagonal setting). The structure can be looked at as a variant of the body centred cubic packing with Αl-atom layers of puckered six membered rings. The structural relation of the phases LiAl, Li3Al2, Li9Al4, Li is discussed.

scholarly journals Love as a Liberation in Anchee Min’s "Wild Ginger"

2021 ◽  
pp. 185-192
Author(s):  
Ekaterina Karavaeva
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Home Country ◽  
The Past ◽  
American Citizen ◽  
Communist Ideology ◽  
Religious Feeling ◽  
Communist China ◽  
Literary Device ◽  
The Times ◽  
Love Triangle

The article explores the motif of love in a totalitarian society in Anchee Min’s novel “Wild Ginger”. Though an American citizen, Anchee Min belongs to a group of modern Chinese-American writers whose interests focus around the past of her home country China. Childhood and teenage years which Min spent in Communist China provided her with a lot of material for her later novels. In Wild Ginger through a classic plot of love triangle the writer approaches the motif of love in the times of Cultural Revolution. The author examines love as a relationship between a man and a woman, and as a religious feeling and communist ideology. Grotesque becomes the main literary device. Over-exaggeration bordering on incredibility expresses the author’s rejection of the surrounding reality. Intertwining comical and tragical situations, the novels brings the reader to a conclusion that love is the only means of attainting personal freedom and maturity in a totalitarian society.  

scholarly journals THE BODY IN THE HISTORY OF WESTERN EUROPEAN AND RUSSIAN THEATRE: CULTURAL VARIABILITY OF SHAME

Articult ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 19-31
Author(s):  
Leila F. Salimova ◽  
◽  
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Performing Arts ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Body ◽  
Ethical Aspect ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Spectator ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Considerable Body

Modern scientific knowledge approaches the study of the physical and aesthetic bodies with a considerable body of texts. However, on the territory of the theater, the body is still considered exclusively from the point of view of the actor's artistic tools. Theatrical physicality and the character of physical empathy in the theater are not limited to the boundaries of the performing arts, but exist in close relationship with the visual and empirical experience of the spectator, performer, and director. The aesthetic and ethical aspect of the attitude to the body in the history of theatrical art has repeatedly changed, including under the influence of changing cultural criteria of "shameful". The culmination of the demarcation of theatrical shame, it would seem, should be an act of pure art, independent of the moral restrictions of society. However, the experiments of modern theater continue to face archaic ethical views. The article attempts to understand the cultural variability of such a phenomenon as shame in its historical and cultural extent using examples from theater art from antiquity to the present day.

scholarly journals Child programs infusion of the sportlife club system children's activity

2021 ◽  
pp. 154-156
Author(s):  
Maksym Yachnyk ◽  
Olena Zendyk ◽  
Iurii Iachniuk ◽  
Iryna Iachniuk ◽  
Sergii Gorodynskyi
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
Healthy Child ◽  
The Body ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Exercise Participation ◽  
Endurance Strength ◽  
Daily Exercise ◽  
Physical Form ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
Physical Shape

Modern life is quite comfortable. Less and less physical effort a human spends to meet every day needs. A sedentary lifestyle is becoming habitual for many, but it is important to remember that a young body needs exercise to grow and develop. In order to maintain good physical shape, you should do exercise. As a result, physical qualities develop: endurance, strength, agility, speed, flexibility. First of all physical activity improves not only the physical form, but also promotes the harmonious development of the child, strengthening his health. It is easier to raise a healthy child it quickly acquires the necessary skills and abilities, better adapts to changes in environmental conditions. It is easier to raise a healthy child, which quickly acquires the necessary skills and abilities, better adapts to changes in environmental conditions. An active healthy child is always strong and cheerful. Insufficient motor activity, vice versa, leads to weakness, weakens the body and its resistance to various diseases. Hypodynamia has an negatively affects mental development, reduces efficiency. This indicates a close relationship between mental and physical development. Daily exercise, participation in moving games; long walks are necessary condition for creating an optimal motor that meets the biological needs of the child's body.

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