Do Not Say We Have Nothing: The Haunting Legacies of the Cultural Revolution in China – Jun Lu

Abstract:

As the third generation of the Cultural Revolution, Jun Lu, a PhD candidate from Canada, will talk about the impacts on her life brought by the difficult histories of her grandparents. With help from her analyst and supervisor in the past six years, she walked through the emotional situations and started to understand her parents, grandparents, and the social-historical environment. Her research then turned to understanding of historical actors in their time, such as the controversial political leader Mao Zedong in China. Jun Lu’s presentation will focus on the following points: 1) why the Cultural Revolution needs to be reviewed through the lens of transgenerational transmission of trauma; 2) what kinds of research have been done so far; 3) which questions remain to be answered; 4) how the study on the Cultural Revolution may contribute to the trauma theory and transgenerational transmission of trauma.

Short bio:

Jun Lu is a PhD student at York University, Toronto, Canada. She plans to interview the second generation of the Cultural Revolution for her postdoctoral work. Currently, Jun Lu is focusing on analyzing the novel written by the second or third generation and exploring how they work through the difficult histories through diaspora literature.