Dan Gao

Positioned at the intersection of culture historiography, archival studies and ethnography, Gao’s dissertation looks at the formation of post-socialist Chinese subjects and the material culture of the People’s Republic of China after the Economic Reform through the lens of a cultural history of smuggling, piracy, and copycat manufacturing of media products in the past four decades. Her implements current studies on contemporary Chinese society with an investigation of a semi-underground yet gigantic cultural component - piracy culture - digging into the “mentality” of China’s persisting indifference to copyright protection, which had become notoriously famous worldwide.