In a Tortoiseshell

My research project examines why students in major universities in China are unable to express acknowledgement and recognition of the famous Tank Man picture taken during the Tiananmen Square Protests of 1989 and the implications of “disremembering” in the context of broader historical revisionist practices. In investigating the limitations of the theory of public place memory and generational memory preservation, I argue that the Chinese population actively chooses to engage in “selective disremembering” as a self-preservationist technique. Selective disremembering poses an additional filter, an important consideration when drawing population-representative conclusions, but of which Western scholarly bias neglects; this research is particularly relevant to scholars interested in studying contemporary China.

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Excerpt

This picture is on the cover of “Time 100: The Most Influential Images of All Time”¹ and  was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize shortly after its release.² The instantly recognizable image  depicts a young man in the lower left corner carrying two shopping bags and defiantly  obstructing the path as four tanks advance towards him. The man’s identity remains shrouded in  mystery, going on to be conferred the title ‘Unknown Rebel.’³ This powerful photograph,  formally known as the ‘Tank Man,’ captured the spirit of China’s Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989.⁴ As one of “100 Photographs That Changed the World,”⁵ the Tank Man became a global  symbol for individual defiance and nonviolent courage against an oppressive military force and political regime during the Massacre. What began as student-led protests culminated in a violent confrontation between the Chinese government and its population. An estimated 50,000 to 200,000 students from the most acclaimed universities across Beijing marched from their  campuses to Tiananmen Square in demand for national reform and the continuation of  burgeoning democratic practices in China.⁶ 

25 years later, journalist and author of The People’s Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited, Dr. Louisa Lim’s research brings her to the same university campuses of the  Tiananmen Square Incident.⁷ Conducted in 2014 (marking the Protests’ 25th year anniversary), Dr. Lim surveyed students at universities across Beijing, presenting to each student the iconic  image of the Tank Man and asking if the student possessed any recognition of the photograph. 

Of the 100 students surveyed across the universities that had some connection to the  event and in turn, the Tank Man, only 15 of the 100 students recognized the picture. Here, the  theory of public place memory proposed by Edward Casey, a leading philosophical psychology  theorist, posits that in the context of an event that is significant to public memory (Tiananmen),  place and space (the universities of the student protestors) facilitate remembrance of ‘active  materials’ heavily associated with the event and the location.⁸ Yet, the population hails from the  institutions at the crux of the event and are illustrative of the places and spaces that Casey  espouses.⁹ Consequently, why is place unable to prompt recognition of the image? 

In tandem, French philosopher and sociologist Maurice Halbwachs’ theory of  generational memory preservation explicates that the temporal quality of memory remains for at  least two generations since an event’s occurrence.¹⁰ Nevertheless, it has been less than two  generations since the event happened in 1989 and when the survey was conducted in 2014 with  the next generations of students.¹¹ Alas, why does the absence of generational distance between  the event and the survey date further not explain students’ inability to recognize the photograph?  

Although standard narratives attribute this gap to be the byproduct of extreme censorship  and propaganda employed by the Chinese Communist Party that results in the students no longer  knowing about this emblematic image, what other reasons could account for this phenomenon?  How might solely looking at the preservation of memory in place and time pose limits to this  analysis? This paper investigates the Western bias present in the survey through the concept of  ‘selective disremembering’ to faithfully answer the question: Why were only 15 students able to identify the Tank Man?

I argue that while preservation of the past and memory exists in place and time, these elements are rendered invisible in the context of powerful, sustained historical revisionism. Instead, what becomes truly visible is the desire for self-preservation that incentivizes populations to engage in ‘selective disremembering’—a concept that describes the exercise of discretion over memory and knowledge. However, scholarly bias¹² makes it difficult to identify that ‘selective disremembering’ poses an additional dimension that researchers interested in studying modern China must be cognizant of. For that reason, data collection that triggers the filter of ‘disremembering’ often produces inaccurate findings and fallacious scholarly interpretations. This research underscores that bias must be taken into consideration when attempting to draw population-representative conclusions.

In this paper, I will first discuss the limitations of Casey and Halbwachs’ theories in  relation to the survey conducted with students who face historical revisionist practices and  possess different cultural values than the surveyor. Then, I will explain the conceptual framework  of selective disremembering in the context of historical revisionism and explain how (1) the  artifacts smuggled to Taiwan during the Cultural Revolution and (2) the beliefs that surrounded  China’s Great Famine are events that further elucidate the underlying agency of  ‘disremembering.’ Thereafter, I will explore the implications of conducting research with  scholarly bias and without acknowledging ‘selective disremembering,’ a critical filter scholars  should account for when analyzing public opinion and evaluating the reliability of data coming from the PRC. Else, scholarly understandings of contemporary China risk remaining tethered to  reflections of Western biases as opposed to the lived realities of populations of interest.  

Footnotes

1. Kate Pickert, “Tank Man at 25: Behind the Iconic Tiananmen Square Photo.” TIME, June 5, 2014. ↩︎
2. “About.” Jeff Widener. ↩︎
3. Kate Pickert, “Tank Man at 25: Behind the Iconic Tiananmen Square Photo.” TIME, June 5, 2014. ↩︎
4. The event is often referred to as the ‘Tiananmen Square Massacre’ in the United States and has also been called the ‘Tiananmen Square Protests.’ It is referred to as the ‘Tiananmen Square Incident’ in China. In this paper, I will use all three names interchangeably and all three names refer to the same event that occurred in 1989. I will also refer to the event as simply ‘Tiananmen.’ ↩︎
5. “Tank Man.” Encyclopædia Britannica, March 14, 2025. ↩︎
6. To introduce the incident correctly, it is important to also acknowledge there were large numbers of middle-class workers who participated in the protests and who have died for their fight for national reforms. For the purposes of this paper, I will not discuss the role of the middle-class workers, but focus on the students in universities across Beijing who partook in the protests. ↩︎
7. Louisa Lim, The People’s Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2015), 85-88. ↩︎
8. Edward S. Casey, “Public Memory in Place and Time.” In Framing Public Memory. University of Alabama Press, 2007. ↩︎
9. Ibid.  ↩︎
10. Maurice Halbwachs. On Collective Memory. United States: University of Chicago Press, 2024. ↩︎
11. Ibid.  ↩︎
12. For the purpose of this paper, I will use ‘scholarly bias’ or ‘research bias (which is not the same as ‘human bias’ or ‘personal bias’) because it is important to the realm of research as its implications include the drawing of accurate, representative conclusions; else, it could misdirect future research projects that rely on existing scholarship. ↩︎

Bibliography

“About.” Jeff Widener. Accessed May 7, 2025. https://www.jeffwidener.com/about/.  

“Tank Man.” Encyclopædia Britannica, March 14, 2025. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Tank-Man.  

Casey, Edward S. “Public Memory in Place and Time.” In Framing Public Memory. University  of Alabama Press, 2007.  

Halbwachs, Maurice. On Collective Memory. United States: University of Chicago Press, 2024.  

Lim, Louisa. The People’s Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited. New York, NY: Oxford  University Press, 2015.  

Pickert, Kate. “Tank Man at 25: Behind the Iconic Tiananmen Square Photo.” TIME, June 5,  2014. https://time.com/2822322/iconic-tiananmen-tank-man-photo/.  

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Author Commentary / Winnie Lin

This is an excerpt from my Assignment 4 paper written in my Writing Seminar, WRI146: Constructing the Past. When I began brainstorming my paper, I considered dozens of different ideas before solidifying my research topic on the ‘Tank Man’ image taken during the Tiananmen Square Massacre. This topic and primary source has been examined by many scholars—including Dr. Louisa Lim’s The People’s Republic of Amnesia—predominantly through the angle of state-sanctioned propaganda and historical revisionist practices. With pre-existingly robust literature, I struggled to enter a scholarly conversation where it seemed everyone had already finished talking. 

After meeting with my professor, I researched and re-researched to conceptualize the motive beyond the well-trodden route of oppressive memory and government control. While these assumptions hold ground, I carefully thought about pushing back against claims advocated by scholars, such as Dr. Lim, that the Chinese population has truly forgotten major events from China’s historical tapestry. This meant the scholarly sources I originally intended to use in my argument on revisionism would serve a completely distinct purpose. I pivoted to the idea with a whiteboard and dry-erase marker in hand, sketching out my burgeoning thoughts on orienting sources, motive-building, thesis development, evidence situating, potential analysis, and thinking about the implications of the research. Now, I revisited Dr. Lim’s evidence of revisionism, through the lens of scholarly bias, further contemplating whether the students in the survey could have provided false answers to the question of: ‘Do you recognize this image,’ a limitation that the conclusions of The People’s Republic of Amnesia does not entirely account for. Upon asking these questions, I saw the gap in expressed versus unexpressed knowledge (yet, does in fact recognize the ‘Tank Man’) that could alter the survey results and extrapolated interpretations. 

Driven by these inquiries, my thesis investigates the shortcomings of Western-centric discussions on revisionism, specifically through a concept I term ‘selective disremembering’ that serves as a filter to understanding populations that Western scholars often fail to consider and consequently creates scholarly bias. The scholars I brought into my paper, Edward Casey and Maurice Halbwachs, provide the theoretical premise for the lacuna of ‘why only 15 of the 100 students surveyed were able to recognize the picture.’ From there, I found evidence of other historical events that Western scholars would deem to solely fit the ‘historical revisionism’ concept but in my analysis, I explain how the events could actually also be understood through ‘selective disremembering’ as self-preservation and individual agency within a nation that been viewed by the West as having exercised full power over its population. 

Writing my paper has been an equally challenging and rewarding endeavor throughout drafts during Writing Seminar to now, revising my paper for publication in Tortoise. The writing journey taught me to unrelentingly pursue the exploration of my ideas; in contending with established theories and data from giants in their fields, I have learned to make room for my voice at the scholarly table—and I seek to continue building these skills in my future works. 

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Editor Commentary / Doris Lee

Writing a compelling introduction in Writing Seminar can be both challenging and intimidating for many students, especially because the structure is often variable and departs from the conventional format emphasized in high school. Introductions in this context are especially significant, as they provide the space for writers to map the development of their motivating questions, situate their work within scholarly conversations, and ultimately lead to the formulation of a thesis. In this regard, Winnie’s paper is especially effective, as she not only fulfills these objectives but does so in a manner that is both accessible and engaging for the reader. 

From the excerpt, it is evident from the outset that Winnie establishes a clear empirical motive. She notes the irony that, despite the Tank Man image being “a global symbol for individual defiance and nonviolent courage” and appearing on the cover of Time 100 as well as being nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, it was recognized by “only 15 of the 100 students” surveyed at universities across Beijing. Winnie extends this empirical motive by situating it within a scholarly context, demonstrating how her analysis engages with existing literature. She argues that prior applications of public place theory and generational memory preservation are insufficient to explain this phenomenon, which positions her work as a meaningful contribution to ongoing academic conversations. This careful layering of motive naturally leads to a motivating question that is both explicit and persuasive. 

With the components of the motive clearly established, her thesis offers an equally structured and insightful response by introducing the concept of “selective disremembering” – a unique and original framework that she defines and contextualizes for the reader. 

The final paragraph of her introduction functions as a roadmap for the paper, outlining how each section contributes to the central thesis: first by addressing theoretical limitations, then by explicating the concept of selective disremembering and linking it to specific historical events, and finally by discussing broader implications. This roadmap gives readers a clear sense of the paper’s trajectory and its intellectual stakes. 

Winnie concludes her introduction with a powerful statement emphasizing the significance of her contribution, noting that misinterpretations of contemporary China are at stake. This further underscores the intellectual and ethical importance of her argument while offering the readers a final compelling reason to engage with her argument.  

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Author

Winnie Lin ‘28 is a sophomore majoring in Public and International Affairs and pursuing minors in History and Environmental Studies. Winnie hails from New York, New York; on campus, she serves as Co-Chair of the Peer Career Advisers program, Co-Director of Events at the Julis-Rabinowitz Center for Public Policy and Finance, Chair of Operations for the Princeton International Relations Council Diplomatic Invitational, and is a James Madison Program for American Ideals and Institutions Fellow. In her free time, Winnie loves exploring museums, creating oil pastel art, and writing poetry. 

Editor

Doris Lee ‘27 is a junior majoring in the School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA) with a minor in English. On campus, she is a Writing Center Fellow, Student House Manager at Richardson Auditorium, a research assistant in the SPIA department, and Vice President of Baking Bad. In her free time, she enjoys reading, listening to music, and crocheting.

In a Tortoiseshell

This piece is an excerpt from my senior thesis midyear report. My thesis project draws on ideas in engineering, biology, and mathematics to model the growth dynamics of a genetically engineered yeast population. In this section, I describe the biological background of my project.

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Excerpt

1.1 The promise of synthetic biology and metabolically engineered cells

Synthetic biology is the practice of applying engineering principles to biological systems, typically cells, redesigning them for targeted use. Synthetic biology draws parallels between cells and electronic devices, particularly by treating cells as controllable input/output systems enabled by four broad cellular subsystems: sensing, signaling, regulation, and metabolism (Del Vecchio and Murray 2015). Synthetic biologists manipulate these subsystems by changing or adding to a cell’s genetic material in order to make cells behave in defined ways. This process of “cutting and pasting” natural and synthetic pieces of DNA together and inserting them into a cell, called cloning, has been enabled by recombinant DNA technology, PCR (DNA amplification), and the ability to artificially synthesize DNA.

Synthetic biology ties closely to metabolic engineering, which introduces or optimizes cellular processes, typically to produce substances of interest such as pharmaceuticals, biofuels, and specialized chemicals (Markina, Kotlobay, and Tsarkova 2020). A key concern for metabolic engineers is how to scale engineered cells for industrial use: as therapeutic agents, for biomanufacturing of food and drugs, and for environmental efforts like water purification or carbon capture. 

1.1.1 Complicating features of the cellular environment (Del Vecchio and Murray 2015)

Despite the seemingly ‘programmable’ nature of cells, unique challenges arise in the biological environment, making it difficult to achieve reliable behavior from engineered cells, and therefore to scale engineered populations to the extent required for industrial use. 

Stochasticity: Even under controlled conditions, the behavior of a cell can be unpredictable, making experiments difficult to reproduce. Stochasticity is present throughout biological systems and may arise from external perturbations to the cell or internal processes like molecular binding and unbinding.

Mutation: When cells divide, they replicate their DNA. This is an opportunity for mutations, or changes to their DNA, to occur. Every so often, a cell may receive an “escape mutant”– a version of the DNA that nullifies the function of the engineered construct (Radde et al., 2024).

Competition for limited cellular resources: Exogenous (engineered) and endogenous (pre-existing) DNA compete for the same limited set of resources within a cell for reading and executing the instructions they contain. Thus, introducing new DNA into a cell detracts from its ability to perform essential functions like growth and division. This metabolic burden, or stress, causes decreased cellular growth rate or otherwise interferes with homeostasis, the cell’s ability to maintain a stable internal cellular environment.

1.1.2 Overcoming cellular limitations in metabolic engineering

One potential solution to the third problem is to decouple cell growth (an energy-intensive process) from resource production using a two-phase fermentation process. In the first phase, cells are allowed to grow without restrictions. In the second phase, growth processes are switched off, which frees up internal cellular resources for heterologous production while also preventing toxic byproducts of this production reaction from interfering with cell growth processes. 

Many methods exist to control cell growth, but one attractive technique that has emerged is optogenetic (light-based) manipulation: yeast can be genetically engineered so that essential growth pathways are controlled by a light-activated protein. Zhao et al. successfully demonstrate that two-phase fermentation indeed allows yeast cells to switch resources from growth (under blue light) to production (in darkness) (Zhao et al. 2018). However, when light-controlled strain cultures are left in darkness/non-growth conditions for long periods of time (40-100 hours), yeast cultures eventually escape the optogenetic growth control, developing an ability to grow even in the dark (Figure 1). It is hypothesized that this is due to the emergence of “cheater” cells, cells which receive mutations to the genetic elements involved in optogenetic control (Gonzalez et al. 2025).

In this thesis, I model the population dynamics of growth-controlled cells when cheaters emerge. Using a few salient parameters, such as cell growth, death, and mutation rate, the model captures the unique features of population growth following cheater emergence: an extended lag time before cheaters arise, rapid increase in population size around t = 50 hours, and for some trials, multiple bursts of population growth

Further, I will investigate the effect of a proposed intervention on these cells–expressing a DNA-binding protein–that nearly doubles the amount of time taken for cells to cheat. By varying the parameters to match two hypotheses for how this intervention effects a change on the cell, I will obtain evidence in support of one, both, or neither of these hypotheses. This evidence will be used to inform our understanding of whether, and how, chromatin-binding proteins slow the onset of genetic instability. Insights from the model may also be used to translate the findings on chromatin-binding proteins to cells that contain gene circuits besides the growth-control circuit tested here.

Del Vecchio, D., & Murray, R. M. (2015). Biomolecular feedback systems. Princeton University Press.

González, L., Echauri, S. A. G., Jeronimo, C., Poitras, C., Gencel, M., Serohijos, A., Bloom, K., Robert, F., Avalos, J. L., & Michnick, S. W. (2025). HP1-enhanced chromatin compaction stabilizes a synthetic metabolic circuit in yeast (p. 2025.03.04.641524). bioRxiv. https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.03.04.641524

Markina, N. M., Kotlobay, A. A., & Tsarkova, A. S. (2020). Heterologous Metabolic Pathways: Strategies for Optimal Expression in Eukaryotic Hosts. Acta Naturae, 12(2), 28–39. https://doi.org/10.32607/actanaturae.10966

Radde, N., Mortensen, G. A., Bhat, D., Shah, S., Clements, J. J., Leonard, S. P., McGuffie, M. J., Mishler, D. M., & Barrick, J. E. (2024). Measuring the burden of hundreds of BioBricks defines an evolutionary limit on constructability in synthetic biology. Nature Communications, 15(1), 6242. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-50639-9

Zhao, E. M., Zhang, Y., Mehl, J., Park, H., Lalwani, M. A., Toettcher, J. E., & Avalos, J. L. (2018). Optogenetic regulation of engineered cellular metabolism for microbial chemical production. Nature, 555(7698), 683–687. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature26141

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Author Commentary / Sanjana Venkatesh 

I came into Princeton with a desire to understand how living systems are programmed: how do our cells ‘know’ what to do, and how can we control their behavior? My search for answers took me to far corners of the academic space on campus, and I found ideas in electrical engineering, molecular biology, neuroscience, philosophy, and more. My senior thesis brings together what could be called the ‘philosophical ideas’ of ECE–how information is stored and used, how components can be linked together into circuits that perform complex tasks–with the workings of biology, and uses a little bit of math and coding to put those ideas together.

Because of the interdisciplinary nature of my project, I felt that a strong orienting section was crucial to my thesis report. Writing this section was challenging for a couple of reasons: first, I had to take care to steer away from niche field-specific language without sounding too informal or making it seem like I was circumlocuting technical words. Second, writing conventions vary within engineering fields, with different readers seeking different information about the problem at hand. My advisors and readers are housed in three departments (MAE, CBE, and ECE), and I had to carefully choose information that would be appropriate to their respective areas of expertise while providing sufficient background about the other areas.

In this section, I aim to lay out the fields of synthetic biology and metabolic engineering in broad strokes: what are the motivating ideas and overarching goals? What experimental techniques are commonly used? What are the major challenges? A major goal for this section was to answer these questions in simple terms, distilling the fields down to only the relevant points required to understand my project, then presenting them as clearly as possible. Two pieces of the Lexicon were crucial to this: careful structuring, and deliberate use of key terms. I broke the excerpt into three sections: one outlining the motivation and goals of the field, a second describing some key problems, and a third that began to zero in on the specific setting for my thesis. I also defined terms like “mutation,” “cheater,” “stochasticity,” and “metabolic burden,” which all feature prominently later in the report. This excerpt also begins to set up the motive for my thesis, situating my project within the broader fields of synthetic biology and metabolic engineering.

One reason I felt so comfortable writing this section, and proud of it once it was finished, was that it was a summary of many of the ideas that I picked up over the course of my time here. By the time I started writing my report, I had read dozens, perhaps hundreds, of review papers, textbook chapters, and news articles on synthetic biology and metabolic engineering. This exercise better acquainted me with writing conventions across different engineering disciplines while also giving me ideas on how to structure this excerpt most logically. Beyond serving as the orienting section of my thesis, this piece is a distillation of much of my academic exploration at Princeton.

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Editor Commentary / Jessica Wang

How do we explain our work to audiences outside of our discipline? Sanjana tackles this question with professional precision in her thesis project introduction. This section demonstrates what it means to write with an audience in mind — in this case, an interdisciplinary set of readers with varying backgrounds in biology and engineering. 

A piece like this can easily become bogged down with confusing jargon. Yet what stands out about Sanjana’s execution is how she carefully defines key terms in digestible language. She makes liberal use of tactics such as subheadings, italicization, and list format to lend structure to her thoughts. In doing so, she is able to fit an impressive amount of information into little space without losing clarity or direction.

Her introduction is an example of the classic inverted pyramid structure: She begins broadly and narrows in on her specific corner of the field. Like a tour guide, she takes us from an overview of her discipline into the world of programmable cells, and then she delves deeper into the technique of optogenetic growth control and the problem of cheaters. She seeds motive throughout the piece using signal phrases about challenges, limitations, or unexplored problems in the field. This neatly leads us to the end, in which she presents her project’s two parts to address this research gap.

This piece shows us how to apply Lexicon concepts to a STEM research sphere. For Sanjana’s thesis, orienting means situating her project in the landscape of past scientific research. The scholarly conversation becomes a “dialogue” between past scholars, studies, and research advances. We find motive in a research gap: a puzzle, a “not obvious” corner of the field, a problem that has yet to be solved. This introduction is informative and deliberate, and Sanjana’s confident writing voice guides the reader through every step of the way.

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Author

Sanjana Venkatesh ‘26 is an Electrical and Computer Engineering major pursuing minors in Bioengineering, Robotics, and Religion. She is interested in synthetic biology and bioethics and enjoys exploring these topics from various angles through different departments at Princeton. She is involved with performing arts on campus through Naacho South Asian Dance and Kalaa Dance Troupe, and loves to spend time outdoors with friends from OA and Running Club.

Editor

Jessica Wang ‘26 is an Ecology and Evolutionary Biology major who loves writing stories. Her writing has appeared in the Nassau Literary Review, figments, Arch & Arrow Literary Magazine, and the Daily Princetonian’s Prospect section. On campus, you can find her working as a Writing Fellow, singing in the Playhouse Choir, and getting distracted by birds.

A research deep dive is made up of many individual, measured steps. In these excerpts, the writers retrace these steps with the reader, carefully leading them to the heart of their paper, by constructing a sequence of moves that guide the reader to the in-depth research that the writer will analyze and explain. Here, Winnie Lin illustrates the nuanced shift that her Writing Seminar paper contributes to the scholarly conversation on historical memory in China, providing scaffolding through a layered motive, a clearly articulated thesis, and a roadmap for the reader to follow as the writer pushes further into the analysis. Sanjana Venkatesh shows how this multi-layered construction of the path to a deep dive is effective in her interdisciplinary STEM senior thesis midyear report, outlining the background to her research in a way that is accessible yet specific.

— Jordan Fraser Angel ’27