Kleinman, A., & Kleinman, J. (1994). How Bodies Remember: Social Memory and Bodily Experience of Criticism, Resistance, and Delegitimation Following China’s Cultural Revolution. New Literary History, 25(3), 707-723.

Summary

The social experience of the Chinese Cultural Revolution has written itself into the bodily experiences of individuals. An analysis of the medical and anthropological implications of illnesses such as headache, fatigue and dizziness reveals these symptoms to be the results of the political turmoil from 1966 to 1976. The societal breakdown and delegitimation of the decade manifested itself in physical symptoms. The symptoms provided the patients an opportunity to recall the trauma, which the state’s official version of history suppresseds. Traditional Chinese medicine is equipped to see the links between social and bodily experience.