In the Realm of Comrades?

Abstract:

This talk addresses the ways in which the social relationship named by “comrade” arose and has been transformed over the course of China’s revolutionary and post-revolutionary century (1920s-2020s). It presents a radical political analysis of how sociality and relationality can be understood in the concreteness of China’s historical passage from semi-colony, to socialist people’s republic, to capitalist world power. 

Rebecca E. Karl teaches history at New York University-NY. Her most recent book is China’s Revolutions in the Modern World: A Brief Interpretive History (Verso 2020) and she is the author of a number of other books and articles about China’s modern and contemporary history. She is a founding co-editor of the positionspolitics.org website, and a member of the Critical China Scholars collective.

Recording