Abstract
The Chines e Communist Party regards affect as a relational structure between both sta te and society\, public and private realms. For this reason\, the CCP has r egarded the cultivation of affect as its sovereign prerogative. However\, t he range of affects promoted by the CCP has changed\, if not entirely rever sed direction\, over time. In the Mao era (1949-1976)\, the Communist Party pursued a horizontal redistribution of affective resources by mobilizing p eople to feel\, narrate\, and perform outrage against their exploite rs and oppressors and sympathy for their fellow comrades. Under Xi J inping’s leadership (2012-present)\, gratitude (gan’en) has b ecome the dominant affective sensibility. This emphasis on gratitude belon gs to a vertical re-alignment of state-society society relations and de-mobilization of the masses.
Talk is based on a co-authored paper with Jeffery Javed.
About the Author< /p>
Dr. Sorace’s research focuses on ideology\, discourse\, urbanisation\ , and aesthetics. He is the author of Shaken Authority: China’s Communis t Party and the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake (Cornell University Press 2017) and co-editor of Afterlives of Chinese Communism: Political Concepts fr om Mao to Xi (Verso Press and ANU Press 2019).