July 2025 updates

1. "Two Maoisms," published in Los Angeles Review of Books (June 7, 2025),  is my review of two new books, Bombard the Headquarters! The Cultural Revolution in China by Linda Jaivin and How Maoism Was Made: Reconstructing China, 1949–1965 edited by Aaron William Moore and Jennifer Altehenger. Since I'm lingering on LARB, I'd like to re-up Yangyang Cheng's wonderful review essay about my Wuhan book  "Viral Stories: On Guobin Yang’s 'The Wuhan Lockdown,'” published on February 9, 2022.

2. 《国际新闻界》(Chinese Journal of Journalism & Communication) published a special section on Chinese internet histories in its issue No. 4, 2025. My introduction to the special section, entitled "Ordinary Life in the Study of Internet Histories," highlights, well, the importance of studying ordinary life.

3. I can't help sharing this interesting AI generated trailer on Xiaohongshu (RedNote) created by HSS Online about my article on the contemporary significance of Professor Wang Zuoliang's views of literary histories. 

4. In 2017, with Rosie Clark-Parsons, PhD, Jasmine Erdener, and Elisabetta Ferrari, we wrote a long entry "activist media" for Oxford Bibliographies. Last year, Yuan Xu (incoming PhD student at Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania) joined the team and worked with me to update the entry. The newly updated entry is now live online (it's paywalled. Message me if you need a pdf). 

5. If you notice that my two recent updates include a few articles in Chinese and even an interview in Spanish, that is because I believe in the value of publishing in non-English languages, as well as in English. Despite all its problems, AI is a useful tool for instantaneous translation. The online platform where the above-mentioned AI-trailered article was published provides instant AI translation of all Chinese texts into English.

Updates about some recent publications, in English, Chinese & Spanish

Can't believe I haven't updated this blog for almost three years! Here are a few updates about recent publications, in reverse chronological order:

1. The May 2025 issue of Foreign Literature (外国文学) just published a special section in commemoration of Professor Wang Zuoliang (王佐良), who passed away 30 years ago in 1995. I contributed an article on Professor Wang's views about how to develop a Chinese paradigm of writing foreign literary histories. My piece discusses how Prof. Wang's work speaks to contemporary academic scholarship in both the humanities and the social sciences. If you don't read Chinese, you will find that the online platform where the journal is published has instant AI translation of Chinese texts into English. It's amazing, and certainly very convenient. The multilingual platform is called HSS Online and was launched last year by Foreign Language & Teaching Press in Beijing. 

2. I'm extremely pleased to have an interview about Chinese internet and social media published in the May 2025 issue of Revista de la Universidad de México. The interview was done with Sandra Barba in English but was published in Spanish because the journal is in Spanish.

3. Another interview was done in Chinese with two scholars in Nanjing University where we discuss my 2020 English article "Communication as Translation." They also asked me about my intellectual trajectories. The interview was just published in the March 2025 issue of Chinese Journal of Journalism & Communication (国际新闻界). The articles in this journal, as well as in Foreign Literature, are open-access.

4. This is also a good time to mention a second interview done recently in Chinese, entitled "Lived Experience, Inter-Disciplinary Knowledge Production and Critical Reflections in an Age of Uncertainty." It was published last year in the Hong Kong-based journal Communication & Society. The second part of the article is the English version.

5. Last year, together with two colleagues (Jingyi Gu and Junyi Lv), we guest-edited a special issue on "Thirty Years of the Internet in China" for the journal Communication and the Public. You will find the first part of the special here, all open-access.

6. Also last year, with two other colleagues (Bingchun Meng and Elaine Yuan), we edited a book entitled Pandemic Crossings: Digital Technology, Everyday Experience, and Governance in the COVID-19 Crisis. It is included in the "US–China Relations in the Age of Globalization" series of the Michigan State University Press edited by Stephen Hartnett. We thank Stephen for his excellent editorial guidance.  And congratulations to Stephen on his forthcoming new book The Lost Chance in China and the Rise of Cold War Populism.

 

All Communication Is Translation

Our fall semester started last week. What did I do this summer? Among other things, I gave a few Zoom lectures to students of journalism and communication in the cities of Jinan, Guangzhou, and Changchun. All the lectures were in Chinese except one. The one in English was entitled "All Communication Is Translation." I don't know who did it, but the lecture is now available on bilibili. If you think bilibili is a platform for commercial influencers, you will be surprised (as I am) to find many academic lectures there and even more surprised to see that the popular lectures easily get tens of thousands of views (not mine, though).

Talks and resources about my new book The Wuhan Lockdown

Very excited to share that The Wuhan Lockdown will be officially released on Feb 15, 2022. Please enter promo code CUP20 for 20% discount on the Columbia University Press website. I will use this space to list book talks and other information/resources related to The Wuhan Lockdown.

Excerpts, Interviews, Reviews, and Commentaries

January 23, 2023. "Covid's legacy: how will China remember the pandemic?" Chinese Whispers (podcast hosted by Cindy Yu of The Spectator).  

December 2022. The Wuhan Lockdown reviewed by Michael Sheringham in Asian Affairs. See: Michael Sheringham (2022) The Wuhan Lockdown, Asian Affairs, DOI:10.1080/03068374.2022.2151278 

November 2022. The Wuhan Lockdown reviewed in Choice, Nov 2022 vol. 60, no. 3.

November 2022. The Wuhan Lockdown selected as Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2022 and The Top 75 Community College Titles, November 2022 Edition.

August 1, 2022, "Pandemic Diaries Under the Lens," book review in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

June 14, 2022. "Frontline Voices from the Pandemic's Early Days" (an excerpt from The Wuhan Lockdown). Penn Today.

May 11, 2022. Review of The Wuhan Lockdown. The Lancet Respiratory Medicine.

May 9, 2022. Read an exclusive excerpt from Chapter 1 of The Wuhan Lockdown, HarperCollins India.

April 29, 2022. "Shanghai's Lockdown: A ChinaFile Conversation" includes my short commentary.

April 6, 2022. Karen Brooks, "Locked Down and Opening Up." Omnia, University of Pennsylvania.

October 30, 2021, Starred review in Kirkus Reviews.

Feb 9, 2022, "Viral Stories: On Guobin Yang's The Wuhan Lockdown," by Yangyang Cheng, in Los Angeles Review of Books.

Feb. 13, 2022, The Page 99 Test applied to The Wuhan Lockdown.

March 4, 2022, Undark Magazine publishes an excerpt from the book - the story about a delivery driver.

Sept. 24, 2020, "In China, Pandemic Diaries Unite, and Divide, a Nation." Social Science Research Council, Items. 

Feb. 3, 2020. "The Digital Radicals of Wuhan." Center on Digital Culture and Society, University of Pennsylvania. 

Book Talks

Below is a list of my book talks. I will update the list from time to time. All the time listed is Eastern Standard Time unless otherwise noted. If past talks have video or audio recordings available, you will see links to them.

Jan. 6, 2022, 8:30-10pm "The Wuhan Lockdown with Guobin Yang." Zhengfawei Clubhouse Event with Neysun Mahboubi, Mary Gallagher, Maggie Lewis, Sida Liu, Victor Shih, and Alex Wang. Audio recording available here.

Jan. 20, 2022, 8pm. "Re-enacting the Wuhan Lockdown: Characters, Scenes, and Other Narrative Strategies." Department of Communications and New Media, National University of Singapore. Moderator: Weiyu Zhang; Discussants: Jack Qiu, Chen Gang, Zou Dongxin. YouTube video here.

Jan. 31, 2022, 6pm. Institute for Public Knowledge, NYU. Discussants: Eric Klinenberg, Lily Chumley, Ian Johnson. Event video available via Twitter here and on YouTube video here.

Feb. 11, 2022, 9am. "The Wuhan Lockdown." China Center for Social Policy, Columbia University. Moderator: Qin Gao. YouTube video here.

Feb. 16, 2022, 12:30pm. "Listening to the Wuhan Lockdown." Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University. Moderator/Discussant: Nara Dillon. YouTube video here.

Feb. 24, 2022, 5pm EST. "Social Media and Social History during the Wuhan Lockdown." Long US-China Institute Distinguished Lecture, UC-Irvine. YouTube video here.

Feb. 26, 2022, 6-7:15pm EST. Panel on COVID-19, Global China in an Anxious Age, organized by Jeffrey Wasserstrom, UC-Irvine [this is not a book talk, but I'll draw on my book in this panel discussion about COVID-19]

March 14, 2022, 5pm GMT. "Echoes of the Past in the Wuhan Lockdown." SOAS China Institute, University of London. YouTube video here.

March 23, 2022, 10:30am-12pm, "Social Media and Civic Engagement during the Wuhan Lockdown." ChinaTalks lecture, University of Copenhagen.

April 1, 2022, "The Wuhan Lockdown and the Limits of Critique." Coughlin Endowed Lecture, East Asia Center, University of Virginia. YouTube video here.

May 10, 2022, 7:30am EDT, "'An Absolutely Ordinary Person': Stories from the Wuhan Lockdown." Manchester China Institute. Segment on "The Emotional Impact of Lockdown Diaries." Segment on "Celebrating Ordinary People." Full video (45 minutes) here.

北京时间2022年5月21日早晨9-10点， 哥大全球中心“追光”主题研讨《武汉封城》

观看视频，请点击这里. 5-minute highlights with English subtitles.

September 28, 2022, 12-1:30pm Hawaii time (6-7:30pm ET). Conversations on The Wuhan Lockdown. Center for Chinese Studies, University of Hawaii. YouTube video here. 

October 11, 2022, 12-1pm. On The Wuhan Lockdown, or How to Reassemble a Global Pandemic. Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan.

October 28, 2022. "How to Study a Pandemic While Living It: Narrative Inquiry and The Wuhan Lockdown." School of Communication, Hong Kong Baptist University. "Distinguished Research Seminar Series." YouTube video here.

November 23, 2022, 10am. "Narrative Inquiry and The Wuhan Lockdown." Kyungpook National University, South Korea.

February 16, 2023. "The Wuhan Lockdown." 21st Century China Center, School of Global Policy and Strategy, UC San Diego.

March 24, 2023. "New Forms of Digital Activism in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic." Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Concordia University. 

February 20, 2024: "To Have Theory in a Pandemic, or Not to? Pandemic Storytelling and the Wuhan Lockdown." East Asian Studies Program, Princeton University.

First blog since 2017

I'm not sure if it's a good idea, but I'm going to try to pick up blogging again. Last time I posted anything here was in 2017. Things have changed a little since then.

I guess part of the reason I'm switching back to good-old blogging is I'm spending less time on Twitter and even less on Facebook. I use Weibo and WeChat more, but that's in Chinese.

I don't know exactly what I'll blog about. Mostly about research, reading, writing, conferencing, and such. And my next post will be a "Call for Abstracts" for a workshop on "Narratives of COVID-19" we at the Center for Digital Culture and Society will be organizing. 

Book description for paperback of The Red Guard Generation and Political Activism in China

Excited to know that the paperback of my book The Red Guard Generation and Political Activism in China will be out in March, 2017. I had to come up with a very condensed version of the book description, and here it is:

Guobin Yang argues that Chinese youth performed an imagined revolution from 1966 to 1968 in order to prove their revolutionary credentials and enact a hallowed political mythology. As sent-down youth in the 1970s, they rejected their revolutionary idealism and embraced self-interest and the values of ordinary life, paving the way for the cultural and political movements of the 1980s. Yang shows that contemporary memories of the Cultural Revolution are contested and often fall along the lines of political division that formed fifty years ago. 

The book description on Amazon and on the web site of the press is like this:

Raised to be "flowers of the nation," the first generation born after the founding of the People's Republic of China was united in its political outlook and at first embraced the Cultural Revolution of 1966, but then split into warring factions. Investigating the causes of this fracture, Guobin Yang argues that Chinese youth engaged in an imaginary revolution from 1966 to 1968, enacting a political mythology that encouraged violence as a way to prove one's revolutionary credentials. This same competitive dynamic would later turn the Red Guard against the communist government.

Throughout the 1970s, the majority of Red Guard youth were sent to work in rural villages, where they developed an appreciation for the values of ordinary life. From this experience, an underground cultural movement was born. Rejecting idolatry, these relocated revolutionaries developed a new form of resistance that signaled a new era of enlightenment, culminating in the Democracy Wall movement of the late 1970s and the Tiananmen protest of 1989. Yang's final chapter on the politics of history and memory    argues that contemporary memories of the Cultural Revolution are factionalized along these lines of political division, formed fifty years before.

Op-ed, China's Divided Netizens

Written for Issue No. 6 of Berggruen Insights, October 21, 2016

On January 13, 2008, Southern Metropolis Daily in the southern city of Guangzhou, China carried a story titled “The Rise of Internet Citizens: Don’t Even Think about Duping Netizens.” Referring to the many online protests in 2007, the story noted that in the internet age, netizens could no longer be hoodwinked by anyone. They would use online forums and blogs to voice their concerns and fight for social justice. 

The word “netizens” in the title of the story, as was in public discourse at that time, carried a sense of solidarity. Wangmin, or netizenry, had taken on the meanings of a collective identity in Chinese society. No matter how different they might be in other ways, netizens shared one distinct trait. Champions of marginal social groups, they were vociferous on issues of social injustice. 

“Netizens” became a powerful collective identity through frequent netizen action – or what I refer to as online activism in my 2009 book The Power of the Internet in China. They have sought justice for victims of police brutality, exposed corrupt government officials, challenged the censorship practices of propaganda authorities, and put government authorities on the defense on policy matters. As recently as in the 1980s, students and intellectuals were considered as the conscience of the nation. Now it is netizens.

Continue to read the whole essay here.