Notes and Comments on JSTOR Reviews

Review: Tales from the Dark Side

Reviewed Work(s): VENICE

Review by: OLAF MÖLLER

Source: Film Comment , NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2010, Vol. 46, No. 6 (NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2010), pp. 54-57

Published by: Film Society of Lincoln Center Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/43458248

Film review, briefly discusses 2010 fictional film The Ditch by Wang Bing

Film version of Yang Xianhui’s Gaobie Jiabiangou (Goodbye Jiabiangou) (why is English title Woman from Shanghai: Tales of Survival from a Chinese Labor Camp?) + Wang Bing’s own interview with ex-inmates

“a ragged assemblage of scenes from the daily life of Jiabiangou”

“a painstakingly detailed historical reconstruction and reenactment”

Film shows “desperate individuals eating a rat [and] one another’s vomit”

“the film feels incomplete…: China’s forced labor prison system is still in use”

No directly useable information

Maybe will watch the film? – Wang Bing’s own research perhaps will be useful

Review

Reviewed Work(s): Dead Souls (Si Linghun 死灵魂) by Bing WANG and Bing WANG

Review by: JUDITH PERNIN

Source: China Perspectives , 2019, No. 3 (118) (2019), pp. 69-70

Published by: French Centre for Research on Contemporary China

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/26823842

Film review of 2018 documentary film Dead Souls by Wang Bing

Oral history of the Anti-Rightist Movement retold by former prisoners in a labor camp in Gansu

“an achievement for Wang Bing as a filmmaker, as well as a notable contribution to the understanding of the early Mao era.”

“the narratives in Dead Souls form a remarkable trove of information and personal memories useful to the general public, as well as to historians and experts.”

Wang Bing’s personal connection with the historical topic – “strive to uncover personal experiences of the past”

“The survivors often begin by revealing the reasons behind their rightist label, expressing their feeling of injustice through an absurd anecdote or a pointed criticism. They retrace their misfortunes to their family background, or tell us how they were denounced for openly criticising policies, or simply by betrayal or to fill quotas. They also talk about their writings, their ideology, or their faith, and debate the merits and failures of Maoism.”

Review

Reviewed Work(s): My Bodhi Tree by Zhang Xianliang and Martha Avery

Review by: Philip F. Williams

Source: World Literature Today, Vol. 71, No. 4, The Questing Fictions of J. M. G. Le Clézio (Autumn, 1997), pp. 866-867

Published by: Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40153493

Literary review on Zhang Xianliang’s My Bodhi Tree (我的菩提树) – “dramatization of a laconic diary written in a labor camp over three decades ealier”

“the narrator apportions most of the blame to the government not of laws but of patriarchal or patrimonial rule by decree, in which Mao Zedong’s most foolish utopian production schemes were indulged like the whims of an addled but repected family elder.”

Review

Reviewed Work(s): Art and Politics in China 1949-1984 by Maria Galikowski

Review by: Stefan R. Landsberger

Source: Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London , 1999, Vol. 62, No. 2 (1999), pp. 395-396

Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of School of Oriental and African Studies

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3107548

“Through its thousands of years of history, the Chinese state has used the arts to propogate correct behaviour and thought.” – a tradition of propaganda and not protest? Something inherent Chinese?

Art >> the CCP’s “visions of the future and interpretation of the past”

Galikowski’s study – interaction of art and politics from 1949-84:

Stage 1 – 1949-56 – formative – “repression”

Stage 2 – 1956-66 – the vacillating years – “liberalization”

Stage 3 – 1966-76 – cultural revolution – “repression”

Stage 4 – 1976-84 – “Open Door” years – “liberalization”

Little relevance to research topic – theme of propaganda and cycle of repression interesting

Review

Reviewed Work(s): New Ghosts, Old Ghosts: Prisons and Labor Reform Camps in China by James D. Seymour and Richard Anderson

Review by: Frank Dikötter

Source: Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London , 1999, Vol. 62, No. 2 (1999), pp. 396-397

Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of School of Oriental and African Studies

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3107549

3 NW provinces –

Gansu: examined in great detail

Qinghai: some historcal background

Xinjiang: mostly focused on bingtuan (兵团) Production and Construction Corps

Purpose of work: description of NW labor camps, analysis of organization, estimation of conditions

Some useful primary sources: classified documents and interviews

“The conclusions reached by the authors, while invoking the tone of absolute authority common to social science, can only be described as tentative hypotheses.” – subtle roast…

Generalization about all labor camps in China by the authors “imprudent”

“lack of relable statistics” for laogai research

Statistical analyses in book “arbitrary” and “misleading”

Very critical of the work

“While the conclusions reached by the authors question in an important and timely way the extreme claims made by Harry Wu… they do not always engage with the major existing studies in the field.” – the study of this field is very much political

Review

Reviewed Work(s): New Ghosts, Old Ghosts: Prisons and Labor Reform Camps in China by James D. Seymour and Richard Anderson

Review by: Dean G. Rojek

Source: The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science , Sep., 1999, Vol. 565, Civil Society and Democratization (Sep., 1999), pp. 230-231

Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. in association with the American Academy of Political and Social Science

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1049555

China has a “long tradition of harsh discipline”

“Just how representative [Xinjiang, Qinghai, and Gansu] are of the rest of China is not adequately addressed.” – similar sentiment as that expressed in previous review

Management of prisons “pervasive subculture of resistence” – latter half of book more useful

Authors of work suggest that more protection is needed at trial stage in China, fails to understand common law is not part of Chinese legal procedure however, reviewer claims

More concise version of previous review

Review Reviewed Work(s): Criminal Justice in China: A History by Klaus Mühlhahn Review by: Michael Tsin Source: The American Historical Review, Vol. 115, No. 2 (APRIL 2010), pp. 516-517 Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical Association Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23302609 Accessed: 04-08-2021 09:35 UTC

Focus of work: “institutional practice of punishment in twentieth-century China”

Formation of court system, spread of legal consciousness, professionalization of legal representation…

“admirably systematic approach” – “coherent narrative on the evoluton of penal practices in China”

Concept of reform through labor developed during the warring years of 1938-1949

“Finely grained analysis” the laogai system through China was decentralized

Useful characterization of laogai system nationwide

Review

Reviewed Work(s): Laogai: The Chinese Gulag. by Hongda Harry Wu: A March of No Regret. by Liu Shanqing

Review by: Anita Chan

Source: The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs , Jan., 1993, No. 29 (Jan., 1993), pp. 172-175

Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the College of Asia and the Pacific, The Australian National University

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2949961

The two books “most detailed and up-to-date picture” of Laogai, especially after the economic reforms in the 1980s

Wu – thoroughly researched, systematic, little appearance of personal experiences

The economic basis of laogai

“Readers who are somewhat sceptical of Wu's almost incredible description of the changes underway in China's labour-reform camps will be more than convinced when they read Liu Shanqing's graphic first-hand description of prison conditions.”

Honestly… there seems to be very little support for the reviewer’s claims of praise.

How is Harry Wu and his work characterized by these various reviewers? How would these characterizations fit together? Where do these reviewers find evidence to support their claims?

Review Reviewed Work(s): Laogai: The Chinese Gulag. by Hongda Harry Wu and Ted Slingerland Review by: David Bachman Source: Pacific Affairs, Spring, 1993, Vol. 66, No. 1 (Spring, 1993), pp. 106-108 Published by: Pacific Affairs, University of British Columbia

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2760029

“This could have been a very important and good book, but it is so poorly argued, translated, copyedited, and produced, that it reflects badly on all concerned.” – very poignant opening

Interesting contrast with the attitude of this reviewer and that of the previous one – generally critical v. wholehearted admiration

“[Wu] allows his bias to run out of control, implying more than what is the case, not qualifying his assertions, making glaring factual errors, and drawing illogical conclusions.” – very, very different from previous review…

“This is a real shame…”

Points of interest – the weakening roles of wardens and the increased entrepreneurship of detainees, appendix of camps