About Yi Ren

Yi Ren is completing her Ph.D. in Modern Chinese History at the University of Pennsylvania. Her dissertation explores how the Chinese Communist Party incorporated its rural populations, especially those marginalized groups, for its propaganda work on the ground level, and demonstrates how these grassroots cultural workers made propagandists’ policies work to their benefit. Her dissertation argues that the success of CCP cultural work in the countryside depended not on ideological persuasion or a newly created political culture, but on constant and dynamic interactions with local practitioners. She publishes articles on Frontiers of History in China, Twentieth-Century China (Forthcoming October issue).

NBN Episodes hosted by Yi:

Di Luo, "Beyond Citizenship: Literacy and Personhood in Everyday China, 1900-1945" (Brill, 2022)

April 16, 2023

Beyond Citizenship

Di Luo
Hosted by Yi Ren

Beyond Citizenship: Literacy and Personhood in Everyday China, 1900-1945 (Brill, 2022) focuses on the role of literacy in building a modern nation-sta…

Brian DeMare, "Tiger, Tyrant, Bandit, Businessman: Echoes of Counterrevolution from New China" (Stanford UP, 2022)

August 30, 2022

Tiger, Tyrant, Bandit, Businessman

Brian DeMare
Hosted by Yi Ren

Using rare grassroots archives, Tiger, Tyrant, Bandit, Businessman: Echoes of Counterrevolution from New China (Stanford UP, 2022) dives deep into fo…