Visual Mao Zedong Ideological ideals and rhetorical ordeals

This dissertation takes a rhetorical approach toward the ideological identifications and contradictions of Chinese national and global politics implied by Mao Zedong's physical presence and his painted or printed images. Making historical and theoretical selections that should inform and challenge scholars who work in English, I have analyzed the visual codes, cultural and linguistic contradictions, and political emotions that have promoted ideological interactions around these images of Mao Zedong. Closely related to Lenin's impermanence idea about public propaganda, the portrait of Mao Zedong at Tiananmen, Beijing, China, typically presents the complex relationships of ideology and power in our modern world. On the one hand, it is only a simple portrait on canvas in a humble frame. On the other, it is a giant image displayed at a politically prominent spot, the painting of which is constantly renewed. The dissertation explores the visual rhetoric of this kind of metonymic display of Mao Zedong, considers how its signifying functions operate in the changing social and ideological realities of China and the global political economy, and suggests how these images articulate and represent a selective persona of Mao Zedong as a consistent factor amidst such changes