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Performing History in China: Cultural Memory in the Present

  • Na Li EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: December 20, 2022
International Public History
From the journal International Public History Volume 5 Issue 2

Abstract

Performing history has become immensely popular in China since the dawn of the twenty-first century. What is exactly the cultural impulse behind the massive craze for performing history in China? Premised on history being one of many modes of representation of the past, and performance being one of them, this article argues that performing history through reenactment, an expression of cultural memory mediated and remediated in the present, is a new form of public history in China. The democratic impulse enacted by such a performance can nurture serious discussions on historical issues, cultivate a shared interpretive authority, and shape historical consciousness of the ordinary Chinese.

Keywords: performance; cultural memory; public history
Corresponding author: Na Li, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China, E-mail:
Published Online: 2022-12-20

© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Special Section on Practices of Counter-Curation: Historical and Cultural Perspectives on Renegotiating Norms and Narratives in Meaning-Making
  3. Curation as a Social Practice: Counter-Narratives in Public Space
  4. Female Counter-Curation: A Case Study of Polish Napoleonic War Reenactment
  5. ‘On Our Own Terms’: Refusal, Masks, and Indigenous Counter-narratives in Santiago de Chile Public Space
  6. Dark Academia: Curating Affective History in a COVID-Era Internet Aesthetic
  7. ‘Fluid’ Identity in Text-Building: A Study of the Revitalization of Origin Tales in West Hunan, China
  8. Additional Article
  9. Performing History in China: Cultural Memory in the Present
  10. PH in Russia
  11. Public History in Russia: The Past, the Present, and (Thoughts About) the Future
  12. Book Reviews
  13. Thorsten Logge, Eva Schöck-Quinteros, and Nils Steffen: Review of Geschichte im Rampenlicht: Inszenierungen historischer Quellen im Theater
  14. Serge Noiret, Mark Tebeau, and Gerben Zaagsma: Handbook of Digital Public History
https://doi.org/10.1515/iph-2022-2049
Keywords for this article
performance; cultural memory; public history

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Special Section on Practices of Counter-Curation: Historical and Cultural Perspectives on Renegotiating Norms and Narratives in Meaning-Making
  3. Curation as a Social Practice: Counter-Narratives in Public Space
  4. Female Counter-Curation: A Case Study of Polish Napoleonic War Reenactment
  5. ‘On Our Own Terms’: Refusal, Masks, and Indigenous Counter-narratives in Santiago de Chile Public Space
  6. Dark Academia: Curating Affective History in a COVID-Era Internet Aesthetic
  7. ‘Fluid’ Identity in Text-Building: A Study of the Revitalization of Origin Tales in West Hunan, China
  8. Additional Article
  9. Performing History in China: Cultural Memory in the Present
  10. PH in Russia
  11. Public History in Russia: The Past, the Present, and (Thoughts About) the Future
  12. Book Reviews
  13. Thorsten Logge, Eva Schöck-Quinteros, and Nils Steffen: Review of Geschichte im Rampenlicht: Inszenierungen historischer Quellen im Theater
  14. Serge Noiret, Mark Tebeau, and Gerben Zaagsma: Handbook of Digital Public History
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