Tuning in with the Cut-out: Profane Music and Subcultural Politics in 1990s China
My thesis explores the subcultural politics of the ‘cut-out (dakou) generation’ in 1990s mainland China. It places three central objects under investigation: a) the ‘profane music’, namely, the cut-out music products and the Western rock/alternative music they contain, which I will analyze both as a particular type of cultural commodities and as ‘things’ - non-human mediating objects - in general, b) the (sub)cultural group, that is, the subculture of the ‘cut-out generation’ including its norms, values and activities which I will analyse under the lens of a Bourdieusian ‘field’ of subcultural consumption; and c) the historical context, which is the specific sociocultural circumstances of 1990s China. Adopting the perspective of ‘cultural politics’ from Paul Willis (1978), I aim to explore two forms of cultural relationship: on the one hand, the ‘homological’ relationship between a) and b), that is, the possibilities of cultural interactions between things and people; and on the other hand, the ‘integral’ relationship between b) and c), that is, the genesis and conditioning of such cultural interactions within certain historical context. While the ‘cut-out generation’ undoubtedly represents a vital moment in modern China’s cultural history, it has either been misrepresented or remained overlooked by scholarships in the field of Chinese study. My study aims to provide a systematic account of both the consumption of cut-out music products as a cultural practice and the phenomenon of the ‘cut-out generation’ as a distinctive youth subculture.
Supervisors: Dr Myria Georgiou & Dr Bingchun Meng
Before joining the Department of Media and Communications at LSE, I completed my MPhil Degree in Sociology at The University of Cambridge, where I studied the Chinese cut-out market under the perspective of cultural globalization. I have a BA in Education from Beijing Normal University. My Bachelor's thesis explored the educational theories of the philosopher Paul Feyerabend, I have also led an educational research project on migrant children in Beijing funded by Beijing Municipal Commission of Education. During the academic year 2012-2013, I studied as an exchange student at the Faculty of Humanities, The University of Manchester.