Dongshi Zhang is a senior History major. Based on oral interviews, his thesis plumbs the memories from his relatives to write a microhistory of his interviewees’ experiences and mentalities in Northeastern China during the turbulent early years of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). His project draws insight from the rich secondary literature on oral history methods, especially in People’s Republic of China (PRC) scholarship, including that of Gail Hershatter, Li Jie, and Wang Zheng, to probe how memories become twisted—either consciously or subconsciously—by human subjects.
Zhang’s research extensively explores the following three subjects in its main sections: 1) the persistence of the invisible–yet–influential fox cult belief in the early PRC; 2) the wildfire prevention campaign in the Northeastern Forestry Bureau; and 3) the institutionalized official efforts to reverse previous court verdicts during the Cultural Revolution in the post–Mao era. Using a bottom–up approach via the oral history methodology, Zhang uncovers some of the repressed ideologies existing in his original hometown in Northeastern China, where traditional culture and practices clashed with and transformed in the face of the introduction of the new Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regime after 1949.
His ultimate goal after graduation is to pursue a degree in law. He believes that the analytical methodology employed in his research—the case study—will prepare him for the kind of careful accretion of legal evidence to make a persuasive argument. In turn, his future legal training may also offer interdisciplinary views on historical research.
