Short videos on Chinese public intellectuals and liberals

中文如下

In April, I gave a talk at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University about Chinese public intellectuals, the Mao era and how things stand today, in the Xi Jinping era. 

Last week, the center, released a video of the full talk, which you can watch here.

It also issued two shorter videos on key points in the talk (which will save you a lot of time!).

One is how public intellectuals found inspiration in the battles of the Mao era (the video headline says “Cultural Revolution” but I discuss people through the nearly three decades of Mao’s rule). Take a look here.

Finally, it issued a video on how I was inspired to write Sparks by reading about China’s public intellectuals and their battles over the past decades. I admit to overlooking their work in the 1990s, thinking they were unimportant, and why I changed my mind. Check it out here. 

Thanks especially to Professor Michael Szonyi for being my interlocutor, center director Mark Wu, and Fairbank media czar Sam Maclean for bringing it all together. 

The talk was in a series called “Critical Issues Confronting China.” You can see its webpage here.

 

今年4月，我在哈佛大学费正清中国研究中心做了一场讲座，谈中国的公共知识分子、毛泽东时代，以及到了习近平时代的今天，他们的处境如何。

 

上周，费正清中心发布了这场讲座的完整视频，可以在这里观看。

 

中心还发布了两段较短的视频，分别摘取了讲座中的几个重点（可以帮大家省不少时间！）。

 

其中一段谈的是中国公共知识分子如何从毛泽东时代的种种抗争中汲取启发。（视频标题写的是“文化大革命”，但实际上我谈到的人物横跨毛泽东执政近三十年的整个时期。）可以在这里观看。

 

最后一段视频谈的是，我如何在阅读中国公共知识分子以及他们过去几十年来种种抗争的过程中，受到启发并写下《星火》。我也坦承，自己在1990年代曾经忽视了这些人的工作，认为他们并不重要；视频中我也谈到后来为什么改变了看法。可以在这里观看。

 

特别感谢Michael Szonyi教授与我对谈，也感谢中心主任伍人英（Mark Wu），以及负责媒体工作的Sam Maclean，把这一切组织起来。

 

这场讲座属于费正清中心“Critical Issues Confronting China”（中国面临的关键问题）系列。系列网页可以在这里查看。