Read “1989: Tailoring Chinese Dissidents for American Consumption”.

The directors of the documentary film The Gate of Heavenly Peace “join a battle” for the meaning of June 1989, writes Claire Ren in this Perspectives on the Humanities essay. In writing a critical response to the film, Claire joins this battle too. Driven by her fascination with the film’s complexity and her skepticism of Western reports about the events, Claire developed a research inquiry which situated the film in the context of American media narratives. Her inquiry progressed through cycles of immersion and refinement: from an in-depth reading of the film to a project proposal, from hours of research to an annotated bibliography, from several drafts to a submitted essay. The final submission is a powerful act of criticism, through which Claire adds her voice to the debate over the film’s significance and legacy.

—Amy Becker, Director of and Senior Lecturer in the Writing Program