2025 Theses Doctoral

New Storm from Latin America: Staging Cuban Revolution in Socialist China

Wang, Siwei

This dissertation examines the cultural history of Socialist China through its transnational connections with the Cuban Revolution during the Cold War. It explores how cultural exchanges between China and Cuba in the early 1960s played a crucial role in shaping Third World anti-imperialist cultural production. Moving beyond traditional diplomatic archives, this study draws on extensive fieldwork in China and Cuba, analyzing Chinese and Spanish-language sources, including literature, theater, music, and visual culture. By tracing how revolutionary ideals were adapted and reinterpreted in different contexts, this project sheds light on the often-overlooked relationship between Chinese socialist culture and Latin American revolutionary movements.

Through an interdisciplinary approach, this study examines how Chinese writers, dramatists, musicians, and artists engaged with Cuban revolutionary culture to develop new forms of anti-imperialist cultural expression. These cultural productions served both as tools for political mobilization and as a means of fostering a shared revolutionary consciousness across national borders. Central to this dissertation is the argument that this emerging anti-imperialist culture was defined by three key elements: the use of accessible artistic and narrative forms to connect global struggles with local audiences, a grounding in indigenous cultural traditions rather than elite cosmopolitan influences, and a close integration with mass movements that blurred the boundaries between artistic creation and political activism.

By uncovering these transnational cultural entanglements, this dissertation challenges Eurocentric narratives of modern Chinese cultural history and highlights an alternative vision of socialist internationalism. It demonstrates that the Sino-Cuban cultural exchange was not merely state-directed propaganda but an evolving process that involved grassroots participation and creative adaptation. In doing so, this study contributes to broader discussions on the intersection of culture and politics, the legacy of 1960s Third Worldism, and the possibilities of cultural resistance in the global struggle against imperialism.