Yi Ren to Deliver Lecture on Propaganda in Mao’s China The lecture will take place on Oct. 14 at 5 p.m. in the Harte Center.

By Lily Caldwell
October 7, 2026

Yi Ren, assistant professor of history at George Washington University, will deliver a lecture at 5 p.m. on Oct. 14 in room 128 of the Harte Center for Teaching and Learning, located in Leyburn Library. The event is free and open to the public.

The lecture, titled “Beyond the Propaganda State: Everyday Participation and Governance in Mao’s China,” will discuss propaganda in China under Mao Zedong’s leadership, exploring how it became interwoven into everyday life and the role of ordinary people in the making and sustaining of China’s propaganda system. Ren is currently completing her first book, “Propaganda at the Grassroots: Cultural Labor and Socialist State-Making in Rural China, 1938-1976,” under contract with Cambridge University Press, which offers a new perspective on the relationship between propaganda, popular participation and governance in Mao’s China.

Ren specializes in modern China, with research focusing on propaganda and political communication, social history, and the everyday workings of the state in 20th-century China. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in history from Sichuan University, a Master of Arts in history from Peking University and a Ph.D. in history from the University of Pennsylvania. Before George Washington University, Ren was the An Wang Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University and an American Council of Learned Societies Fellow.

This event is supported by the Department of Politics, Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures and the East Asian Studies Program.