Merf. Thinking is Hard.

guys so i met anil menon and grace dillon at the eaton science fiction conference?

and grace dillon is like the most awesome person on the planet? 

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA~~~

This sounds like my kind of dissertation.

jessnevins:

You are all following Chinese History Dissertation Reviews, of course.

What? You’re not? Really?

Well, you’re missing out on things like this, from the review of Matthew David Johnson’s International and Wartime Origins of the Propaganda State: The Motion Picture in China, 1897-1955:

In Chapter Three, “Wartime Propaganda States, 1937-1945,” Johnson skillfully shows how cinema yielded to the omnipresent logic of wartime mobilization as the Nationalists, the Communists, and the Japanese state of Manchuria each used film to influence mass opinion and legitimate their political power. Driven by wartime mobilization, the Nationalists attempted to assimilate commercial modes of production under state control; yet a lack of resources left the Nationalist film industry unable to realize its hegemonic aspirations. The Communists, located in remote Yan’an and subject to frequent blockades and attacks, were not significantly more successful, failing to construct even basic film production facilities. At times, the Yan’an production stories recounted by Johnson read as tragicomic sagas: A Border Region Labor Hero, originally slated to be a major Yan’an production, lost scriptwriters, faced electric shortages and other technical difficulties, was repeatedly disrupted by battles, and was finally abandoned when the figure upon whom the story was based, Wu Manyou, was captured by the Nationalists and issued a public denunciation of the Communist Party. Japanese-occupied Manchuria, in the meantime, saw the emergence of an integrated ‘state-policy’ film industry which would serve as a model for later state film operations.

I can’t be the only one who wants to read about A Border Region Labor Hero and the nascent Communist film industry’s struggles in Yan’an. Can I?

Well, we Tumblrites might be if it were on Tumblr! However, many of us do have feeds of our own that we can most certainly add this lovely link to! Thank you, Mr. Nevins, for bringing this to our attention!