Event Details
WHAT: "Smile...or Else: Optimism Under Capitalism & Socialism," a Zoom talk by Prof. Wendy Larson, moderated by Dr. Jeremiah Jenne
WHEN: 7-8 PM Beijing Time, Wednesday 14th January (online)
ABOUT THE EVENT: Optimismโwhich always has a gaze to the futureโis the favoured state of mind in both capitalist and socialist societies. As offspring of Enlightenment thinking, these cultures have always encouraged happiness and optimism in their citizens and a belief in progress. History showed a steady improvement, they came to believe, and things would continue in this direction indefinitely.
Thinkers in the West, including รmile Couรฉ in France and Norman Vincent Peale in the United States, sought to overcome the heroic melancholy of 19th-century European culture. In China, the New Socialist Person carried the banner of optimism out of the Soviet Union and into the society of the 1930s, where the political and literary figures Zhou Yang and Hu Feng debated how this new person should appear in stories and novels. By the 1950s, revolutionary optimism had become the expected state of mind for those living in a socialist society. Finally, in the 1960s, young people raised the question of whether, as revolutionaries, they deserved to be happy. Prof. Larson compares fictional characters, some of whom model optimism and others who fight its coercive and hypocritical demands, in the decades following WWII.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Wendy Larson is Professor Emerita of East Asian Languages and Literature at the University of Oregon. Her research monographs include Global Good Cheer: Optimism in Socialism and Capitalism (Oxford UP 2025); Zhang Yimou: Globalization and the Subject of Culture (Cambria Press, 2017; forthcoming in Chinese); From Ah Q to Lei Feng: Freud and Revolutionary Spirit in 20th Century China (Stanford UP 2009); Women and Writing in Modern China (Stanford UP 1998); and Literary Authority and the Chinese Writer: Ambivalence and Autobiography (Duke UP 1991). In 2025, Larson worked on her new research project on Nobel Prize winning author Mo Yan at Heidelberg University.
ABOUT THE MODERATOR: Jeremiah Jenne is a writer and historian who was based in Beijing for over two decades. He taught Late Imperial and Modern Chinese History in Beijing for 17 years. Now in Geneva, Switzerland, he is the lead columnist for The Archive Picks section at the "China Books Review" and hosts the podcast, "Barbarians at the Gate".
HOW MUCH: Free for members of RASBJ; 50 RMB for members of RAS branches in London, Shanghai, Hong Kong and members of the Yale community. 100 RMB for non-members. Alipay may be an easier payment method than WeChat. You can also pay by credit card. Interested in becoming an RASBJ member? Please sign up at rasbj.glueup.cn/org/rasbeijing/memberships/
HOW TO JOIN THE EVENT: Those who want to attend should click "Register" or "I will attend" and follow the instructions. After successful registration you'll receive a confirmation email with a link to join the event online. If you seem not to have received it, please check your spam folder. Members of partner RAS Branches: Please register 72 hours in advance to allow time for membership verification. You'll receive three emails from us: the first confirming receipt of your registration request, the second requesting payment, and the third confirming receipt of your payment, with a link to join the event online. Please check your spam folder to ensure you see all RASBJ emails.
REFUND POLICY: If the event is cancelled by RASBJ, registrants will be refunded in full.
