The Cornell Contemporary China Initiative (CCCI) of the East Asia Program welcomes Antonia Finnane (History, University of Melbourne) as part of our semester-long theme of Fashion and Politics in Twentieth-Century China with faculty host, Peidong Sun (History, Cornell)

Some of the questions that guest speakers will investigate include: How do we define politics from the dimension of fashion? What was a politicized fashion? How did fashion reflect the power structure? How did fashion become a way of obedience and resistance? And how do we define and interpret the human condition in China under Mao's rule (1949-1976)? What was human resilience in the face of absolute power?

Antonia Finnane's talk is titled, "Patterns for the People in Communist China."

When the People’s Republic of China was founded, new clothing protocols for state employees resulted in a general change in everyday dress. This was consistent with historical precedent: when the dynasty changed, the clothing was altered. But who made the new clothes and how were they made? Clothing in this period is often discussed in terms such as variety, agency, and consumption, contradicting assumptions of general conformity under communism; yet if we look at how clothes were made, we can see how conformity was instilled.

The CCCI lecture series aims to expose the broad campus community to issues and scholarship of contemporary China.

We thank our co-sponsors:

Asian American Studies Program | Asian Studies | College of Human Ecology | Cornell Society for the Humanities | Feminist, Gender & Sexuality Studies | Department of International & Comparative Labor Relations | Department of History | The Levinson China & Asia-Pacific Studies Program