Jiawen Sun graduated from the Department of Mathematics at Zhejiang University in China with a Bachelor of Science degree in 2007; graduated from the Department of Sociology of East China Normal University with a master's degree in sociology in 2010; and graduated from EHESS with a PhD in sociology in 2020. In 2021, his thesis, entitled « Corps et politique dans la Chine contemporaine. Sociologie de la souffrance parmi les anciens jeunes instruits envoyés dans les fermes militaires pendant la Révolution culturelle », won the 2021 Social History Prize, awarded by the Mattei Dogan Foundation and the Maison des sciences de l'homme Foundation, as well as a Special Mention from the jury of the PSL SHS Thesis Prize 2021. She is now working on the world history of the communist revolution as well as the political legacy of the Maoist era and its contemporary representation.
Jiawen Sun is currently an associate member of the Centre d’études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine (CECMC) at EHESS.
The project
Title: Corps et politique dans la Chine contemporaine. Sociologie de la souffrance parmi les anciens jeunes instruits envoyés dans les fermes militaires pendant la Révolution culturelle
Keywords: the movement to send educated youth to the countryside (Shangshan xiaxiang), the history of educated youth (zhiqing), the sociology of suffering, political depression, the sociology of the body, medical anthropology and somatization
Selected publications
2019, « Tengtong sushuo yu jiti kunan jiyi: Daxing’anling linchang zhiqing koushushi de shehuixue yanjiu » (Narration de la douleur et mémoire collective de la souffrance : une étude sociologique sur l’histoire orale des anciens jeunes instruits de la ferme forestière de Daxing’anling), publiée à l’origine dans Sciences sociales chinoises, 2013, No. 4, pp. 73-83, in Qi Zhi (ed.), Essays by Chinese Scholars on the Cultural Revolution (2): Thoughts and Culture, Austin, TX 78748, Remembering Publishing LLC., pp. 183-198.
2019, « Nanju beizhi shuitu yi - Heilongjiang bingtuan yu Yunnan bingtuan de bijiao yanjiu » (L’influence des facteurs géopolitiques dans l’étude de l’histoire de la mentalité : étude comparative du Corps de production et de construction du Heilongjiang et celui du Yunnan), in Qi Zhi (ed.), Essays by Chinese Scholars on the Cultural Revolution (4): Politics and Masses, Austin, TX 78748, Remembering Publishing LLC., pp. 277-308.
2018, « Zhiqing chushen de zhengzhi bianqian jiqi shehui gongneng: ‘hongwulei’, ‘heiwulei’ zai richang shenghuozhong de ‘renzhi piancha’ » (Les évolutions politiques et les fonctions sociales de l’origine familiale des jeunes instruits : ‘Biais cognitif’ concernant les ‘Cinq catégories rouges’ et les ‘Cinq catégories noires’ dans la vie quotidienne), revue La Mémoire (Jiyihttps://peq.hypotheses.org/686), No. 242, pp. 14-20.
Research topics
anthropology
depression
sociology
suffering
Activities
Actualité
Mattei Dogan Prize | Interview with Jiawen Sun, 2021 laureate
Body and Politics in Contemporary China. Sociology of Suffering Among Former Educated Youth Sent to Military Farms during the Cultural Revolution
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