Damian Mandzunowski
Contact
Zentrum für Ostasienwissenschaften, Institut für Sinologie
Voßstraße 2, Gebäude 4400
Raum 400.00.05A
69115 Heidelberg
damian.mandzunowski@zo.uni-heidelberg.de
Website: https://damianmandzunowski.com/
About
As a postdoctoral researcher at ZO/CATS within the ERC-funded project ChinaComx, I investigate the intersections of politics, daily life, propaganda, and visual culture in China after 1949. By re-approaching lianhuanhua (Chinese socialist comics) as a “hot” and thus affective medium, my research demonstrates how these palm-sized booklets were instrumental in political communication while simultaneously enjoying a mass readership. Concurrently, I am preparing my first monograph tackling another understudied aspect in the history of reading: the phenomenon of political study and other collective reading practices as underway in the People’s Republic of China during the 1950s–1980s. For more details, including a full list of my publications and talks, please visit my personal website.
Prior to joining Heidelberg University, I contributed to the research projects “The Politics of Reading in the PRC“ (https://readchina.github.io/) and "The Maoist Legacy: Party Dictatorship, Transitional Justice and the Politics of Truth (https://www.maoistlegacy.de/) at the University of Freiburg. I am also an editor and collaborator in the ongoing international project “Revisiting the Revolution: Engaging Chinese Scholarship through Collaborative Translation”.
Curriculum Vitae (Excerpt)
since 2025 Postdoctoral researcher at ChinaComx, Heidelberg University
2025 PhD in Sinology, University of Freiburg (summa cum laude)
2024 Research assistant in the ERC-Project “Comics Culture in the People’s Republic of China (ChinaComx),” Heidelberg University
2019-2023 Research assistant in the ERC-Project “The Politics of Reading in the People’s Republic of China (READCHINA),” University of Freiburg
2018-2019 Research assistant in ERC-Project “The Maoist Legacy: Party Dictatorship, Transitional Justice and the Politics of Truth,” University of Freiburg
2018 MA in Modern China Studies, University of Freiburg
2015 BA in Sinology and Language & Culture Studies, LMU Munich
Selected Publications
Practices of Reading in the People’s Republic of China, ed. Lena Henningsen, Eve Y. Lin, Damian Mandzunowski, Duncan Paterson and Lara Y. Yang (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, forthcoming 2026).
with Lena Henningsen und Daniel Leese, „Wissensasymmetrien. China als Akteur und Objekt (globaler) Debatten—Einleitung“ in Wissensasymmetrien: China als Akteur und Objekt (globaler) Debatten, ed. Lena Henningsen, Daniel Leese and Damian Mandzunowski, 3-9 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2025).
with Laura Pozzi, “Jiang Qing, The Iconic Anti-Icon: Visual Dissection of Female Political Power in Post-Mao People’s Republic of China,” Positions: Asia Critique vol. 32 no. 3 (August 2024).
“Factory State of Mind: Spreading ‘Three Ardent Loves’ via Collective Reading Activities in Tianjin, 1983-1985,” in Wissensorte in China, ed. Martin Hofmann and Joachim Kurtz, 165-192 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2023).
with Liu Chang, translation of: 刘亚娟 Liu Yajuan, “「张顺有事件」：一个典型的「树典型」个案 [The ‘Zhang Shunyou Incident’: A Typical Case for the ‘Practice of Cultivating Models’],” REVISITING THE REVOLUTION 3 (28 June 2023), 1–60, https://networks.h-net.org/liu-yajuan-zhang-shunyou-incident-typical-case-practice-cultivating-models-zhangshunyoushijian.
“News Photography and Visual Political Communication in the People’s Republic of China, 1960s–1980s,” ERCCS – Research Notes No. 4 (2022): https://doi.org/10.25360/01-2022-00062.
“Caricatures Criticizing the Gang of Four.” The Maoist Legacy, 1 June 2018, https://www.maoistlegacy.de/db/caricatures-criticizing-the-gang-of-four.
Recent Talks & Presentations
“A Gallery of Villains: Standardizing Images of Enmity in Chinese Socialist Comics (Lianhuanhua),” 14.03.2026, Association for Asian Studies (AAS) 2026 Annual Conference, Vancouver, Canada.
“Wie sehen unsere Feinde aus? Fremdbilder in chinesischen sozialistischen Comics (Lianhuanhua),” 21.11.2025, XXXVI. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Vereinigung für Chinastudien (DVCS), University of Hamburg, Germany.
“Visual Politics of Historical Representation: Chinese Communist Party Anniversary Comics—1951 and 1981 (and 2011),” 03.09.2025, British Association for Chinese Studies (BACS) 2025 Annual Conference, Leicester, UK.
“Revolutionary Onomatopoeia: Soundscapes in/of Chinese Comics of the Mao Era,” 27.06.2025, international symposium Competing for the People’s Eyes and Ears from Mao to Xi: Transformations of Cultural Life in the PRC, Charles University, Prague, Czechia.
“Radio Study and Other Sounds of Collective Reading Activities in the People’s Republic of China,” 15.05.2025, conference Sonic Histories of East Asia: Thinking History Through Sound, Ca’Foscari University, Venice, Italy.
“A Little Picture Story at Your Service: Lianhuanhua as Instruction Manual,” 24.04.2025, ChinaComx workshop Lianhuanhua as Method, Heidelberg University, Germany.
with Lena Henningsen, “Beyond Captain America and Akira: Heroes and Villains in Chinese Comics and Caricature,” 24.09.2024, the 399th talk delivered at the New York Comics & Picture-story Symposium, Parsons School of Design. [online]
with Aijia Zhang, “Beyond Manga and Marvel: Digitally Approaching Chinese Comics,” 12.07.2024, conference Charting the European D-SEA: Digital Scholarship in East Asian Studies, Staatsbiliothek zu Berlin, Germany.
“Collective Reading Activities after the Cultural Revolution,” 12.06.2024, conference Political Lives in Socialist China, Centre d’études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine at EHESS, Paris, France.