Qian Cui
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Dr.
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Cui
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Qian
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qian.cui@unisg.ch

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  • Publication
    Speaking Truth to Power: China's Artists, Poets and Netizens on the Russo-Ukrainian War, 2022-Present
    ( 2024-02-01)
    Berg, Daria
    ;
    Cui, Qian
    When Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Putin felt confident in Xi Jinping’s support, cemented by pledges of a ‘no-limits friendship’. While the world looked to China for a resolution to the crisis, China’s official media touted Russian propaganda in their coverage of the war while censoring Ukrainian news and pro-Ukrainian perspectives. Despite the risks, Chinese artists, poets and netizens have been exploring the new social media as alternative avenues for creativity to express their views, posting visual art and literature such as poetry, painting and photography in support of Ukraine. This talk will analyse selected works to discover how they ‘speak truth to power’. The Euripidean concept of parrhesia, ‘speaking truth to power’—or literally ‘saying everything one has in mind’—denotes freedom of expression, transparency, duty, idle talk and gossip. Foucault (1983) has pointed out that truth-tellers face risk or danger but feel bound by duty to muster the courage and ‘speak truth to power’. Here I argue that China’s vernacular culture draws on its indigenous tradition of parrhesia, celebrating freedom of expression in visual or literary narratives, fuelled by the storytellers’ sense of duty to their country to ‘speak truth to power’. In the time-honoured tradition of the xiaoshuo—originally meaning small talk or gossip—the new artists and authors brave the risks to use social media as vehicles of expression for their indirect yet scathing critiques of power. References Foucault, Michel, Henri-Paul Fruchaud and Daniele Lorenzini, “Discourse and Truth” and “Parresia”, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2019.
    Type: conference lecture
    URL: https://www.ames.cam.ac.uk/whats-on/china-research-seminar-lent-2024/speaking-truth-power-chinas-artists-poets-and-netizens
    URI: https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/120230
  • Publication
    Speaking Truth to Power: Parrhesia and Perceptions of the Russo-Ukrainian War in Chinese Online Poetry and Visual Narratives, 2022-Present
    ( 2024-05-23)
    Berg, Daria
    ;
    Cui, Qian
    When Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Putin felt confident in Xi Jinping’s support, cemented by pledges of a ‘no-limits friendship’. While the world looked to China for a resolution to the crisis, China’s social media touted Russian propaganda in their coverage of the war while censoring Ukrainian news and pro-Ukrainian perspectives. Despite the risks, Chinese artists, poets and netizens have been exploring the new social media as alternative avenues for creativity to express their views, posting visual art and literature such as poetry, painting and photography in support of Ukraine. This talk will analyse selected works to discover how they ‘speak truth to power’. The Euripidean concept of parrhesia, ‘speaking truth to power’—or literally ‘saying everything one has in mind’—denotes freedom of expression, transparency, duty, idle talk and gossip. Foucault (1983) has pointed out that truth-tellers face risk or danger but feel bound by duty to muster the courage and ‘speak truth to power’. Here I argue that China’s vernacular culture draws on its indigenous tradition of parrhesia, celebrating freedom of expression in visual or literary narratives, fuelled by the storytellers’ sense of duty to their country to ‘speak truth to power’. In the time-honoured tradition of the xiaoshuo—originally meaning small talk or gossip—the new artists and authors brave the risks to use social media as vehicles of expression for their indirect yet scathing critiques of power.
    Type: conference lecture
    URI: https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/120229
  • Publication
    Art under Lockdown: Artists, Bloggers and the China Nightmare in the time of Covid-19
    ( 2024-03-21)
    Daria Berg
    ;
    Qian Cui
    When Xi Jinping announced the ‘China Dream’ (Zhongguo meng)—in analogy to the famous American Dream—as socio-political motto of his rule in 2012, he defined the ambiguous concept as the ‘rejuvenation of the Chinese nation’. Over the course of his government, it has become clear that there is not only the one single China Dream propagated by the official media, but many dreams circulating in China’s vernacular cultures as opposed to the officially ordained culture of the Party State. Moreover Xi’s China Dream has become overshadowed by a series of nightmares: The Covid-19 pandemic; the Ukrainian leg of Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative in ruins; and prolonged internal lockdowns entailing public demonstrations demanding Xi’s resignation. Much scholarship and global media have examined the official China Dream, yet few studies have analysed China’s nightmares. This study seeks to redress this shortfall by analysing the nightmares of the Covid-19 pandemic and its lockdowns from the cultural perspective. This study examines bottom-up responses to top-down control measures through the artistic lens, focusing on online visual art narratives by male and female artists and bloggers in China and abroad: Cao Fei, Ye Funa, Hu Yinping, Michael Leung, Hu Jieming, Sun Xun and Ai Weiwei. This study will shed new light on China’s contemporary vernacular culture in the digital age and its visual art narratives on the theme of the China Dream and its nightmares, experimenting with direct and indirect strategies to critique the regime.
    Type: conference lecture
    URL: https://aisc-org.it/event/conferenza-di-daria-berg-art-under-lockdown-artists-bloggers-and-the-china-nightmare-in-the-time-of-covid-19/
    URI: https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/120231
  • Publication
    Speaking Truth to Power: China's Artists, Poets and Netizens on the Russo-Ukrainian War, 2022-Present
    ( 2024-05-08)
    Daria Berg
    ;
    Qian Cui
    “Speaking Truth to Power: Parrhesia and Perceptions of the Russo-Ukrainian War in Chinese Online Poetry and Visual Narratives, 2022-Present” Daria Berg & Qian Cui, University of St.Gallen, St.Gallen, Switzerland Abstract SAG Nachwuchstagung, Basel 8-10 May 2024 When Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Putin felt confident in Xi Jinping’s support, cemented by pledges of a ‘no-limits friendship’. While the world looked to China for a resolution to the crisis, China’s official media touted Russian propaganda in their coverage of the war while censoring Ukrainian news and pro-Ukrainian perspectives. Despite the risks, Chinese artists, poets and netizens have been exploring the new social media as alternative avenues for creativity to express their views, posting visual art and literature such as poetry, painting and photography in support of Ukraine. This talk will analyse selected works to discover how they ‘speak truth to power’. The Euripidean concept of parrhesia, ‘speaking truth to power’—or literally ‘saying everything one has in mind’—denotes freedom of expression, transparency, duty, idle talk and gossip. Foucault (1983) has pointed out that truth-tellers face risk or danger but feel bound by duty to muster the courage and ‘speak truth to power’. Here I argue that China’s vernacular culture draws on its indigenous tradition of parrhesia, celebrating freedom of expression in visual or literary narratives, fuelled by the storytellers’ sense of duty to their country to ‘speak truth to power’. In the time-honoured tradition of the xiaoshuo—originally meaning small talk or gossip—the new artists and authors brave the risks to use social media as vehicles of expression for their indirect yet scathing critiques of power. References Foucault, Michel, Henri-Paul Fruchaud and Daniele Lorenzini, “Discourse and Truth” and “Parresia”, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2019.
    Type: conference lecture
    URI: https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/120190