Keynote Address
“Moral Censorship in Modern China” Heading link
Michel Hockx
Professor of Chinese Literature and Director of the Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies
University of Notre Dame
Friday, February 21 – 3:30pm
Daley Library 1-470
Most scholarship of censorship in modern China focuses on the suppression of political expression by the PRC government. The core assumption of such studies is that the regime censors any and all publications and activities that might undermine its authority. There are, however, other reasons for censorship which are less directly political and related more to decency standards and community values. Literature and cultural products are especially prone to attract such moral censorship, as well as to find creative ways of circumventing or challenging it. This talk sets out a framework for studying this type of censorship and discusses several Chinese examples, both from print culture and from Internet culture, ranging in time from the early twentieth century, prior to the establishment of Communist rule, to the present.