For non-Columbia affiliates, registration is required to access the Morningside campus. After registering you will receive an email with a QR code that must be presented along with a government-issued ID (your name must match exactly the name registered for the event) at either the 116th Street & Broadway or 116th Street & Amsterdam gates for entry. Please register using a unique email address (one email address per registrant) by Mar. 26 at 4:00 pm for campus access.
Names will be submitted for QR codes 1-2 days prior to the event. Registrants will receive an email from CU Guest Access with the QR code before or on the day of the event.
Speaker: Daniel Leese, Professor of Chinese History and Politics, University of Freiburg
Moderator: Eugenia Lean, Professor, East Asian Languages and Cultures; Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs, Columbia University
After the death of Mao Zedong in September 1976, the Chinese Communist Party faced the pressing question of how to cope with the legacy of injustices and atrocities committed in its own name. This talk showcases research results of the Maoist Legacy Project at the University of Freiburg and discusses its research collection. It addresses complex questions from property restitution, over fostering reconciliation within local communities, to establishing new standards of truth. The project results provide a lens through which to view strategies of coping with a violent past under state socialism, highlighting how selectively applied approaches now associated with the concept of transitional justice may even serve to strengthen rather than subvert authoritarian rule.
Speaker's Bio: Daniel Leese is professor of Chinese history and politics at the University of Freiburg and currently serves as dean of the faculty of philosophy. He is, among others, the author of Mao Cult: Rhetoric and Ritual in China’s Cultural Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 2011) and Mao’s Long Shadow: How China Dealt with its Past (C. H. Beck, 2020). Most recently, he published an anthology of modern Chinese thought in German translation (C. H. Beck, 2023) as well as the edited volume Justice After Mao: The Politics of Historical Truth in the People’s Republic of China (with Amanda Shuman, Cambridge University Press, 2023).
This event is hosted by the Weatherhead East Asian Institute.
Registration: To attend this event in-person, please register HERE.
