Alison Parks

Date of Award

2012

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Van Tuyl, Jocelyn

Keywords

French Maoism, China, Cultural Revolution, France, May 1968, Tel Quel

Area of Concentration

International and Area Studies

Abstract

In 1966, Mao Zedong initiated the decade-long Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Mao's final campaign tore through China, leaving devastation in its wake as he worked to spread Communist ideology and consolidate his power. Meanwhile, in France, mounting political and social tensions led to the eruption of street riots led by university students in May 1968. It was around this time that a fringe group of university students, frustrated with the situation in their own country, looked outward for inspiration and found Maoism. Their blind yet faithful identification with Maoism and the Cultural Revolution's Red Guards creates the basis for a meaningful comparison between the Chinese Cultural Revolution and the events of May 1968, which the first chapter of this thesis explores. Several years later, Tel Quel, an influential intellectual review, praised Maoism as the new in-vogue political ideology, and in 1974 the publication's main contributors traveled to China. The second chapter of this thesis analyzes the group's writings on China from before and after the trip and reveals the dangers of adopting an ideology outside of its intended context. This thesis examines a brief but significant moment in France's historical relations with China and sheds light on perceptions of Maoism and the Cultural Revolution in the Western imagination.

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