Guest Lectures by Worldmaking-Fellows

Location: CATS Campus, seminar building, R. 010.01.05 (1st floor)

Time: Tues, 7 pm – 9 pm

Dai Jinhua

"The Ways of Imagining the Self and China"

Abstract

This lecture examines how Chinese millennials (born between 1985 and 2005) imagine the self and the nation amid the shifting landscape of contemporary Chinese society. Through a cultural symptomatic analysis of youth popular culture and subcultures—including films, animations, online novels, and video games—the speaker explores how cultural practices mediate the psychological formations, lived social experiences, and structural conditions that shape young people’s self-perception and collective imagination. Framed within the broader context of “China’s rise,” this lecture considers how rapid economic growth, political and cultural continuities and ruptures, large-scale internal migration, accelerated urbanization, the implementation and repeal of the one-child policy, the exam-oriented education system centered on the national college entrance examination (gaokao), and an increasingly precarious labor market have shaped contemporary Chinese youth culture. These forces contribute not only to the construction of a generational self-image, but also to evolving visions of “China” itself. The lecture focuses on four interrelated themes: the defense and retreat of individual boundaries, mechanisms of self-suggestion and persuasion, the tension between absolute social order and the impossibility of rebellion, and the pervasive undercurrent of melancholia. Through these entry points, the speaker aims to engage the audience in a dialogue on the emotional and social dimensions of the evolving cultural landscape of Chinese youth in a time of profound transformation.

讲座题目：《想象自我与中国的方式》

摘要 讲者拟从中国青年流行文化、亚文化切入，经由对电影、卡通、网络小说、游戏的文化症候分析，尝试与听众分享中国千禧一代（出生于1985-2005）的文化、心理与他们遭遇到的社会境况与问题。讲者将结合“中国崛起”进程中的经济高速增长、政治文化的连续与断裂、人口流动、急剧的都市化、国家的独生子女政策实施与终止、应试教育与高考制度，社会就业状况等方面讨论中国当下青少年文化的自我想象与中国想象的形成。讲者尝试以“个体边界的进退”、“自我暗示与说服”、“绝对秩序与不可能的反叛”、“忧郁症”为关节点与听众分享对中国青年文化的观察与思考。