DOCSLIB.ORG

Master´S Thesis 2020 Bc. Denisa Máchová

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Master´S Thesis 2020 Bc. Denisa Máchová Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of Chinese Studies Master´s Thesis 2020 Bc. Denisa Máchová Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of Chinese Studies Cultural Studies of China Bc. Denisa Máchová The Self – loathing Discourse in the Theme of Modernisation in the Chinese Literature of the 20th Century Master´s Thesis Supervisor: Mgr. et Mgr. Dušan Vávra, Ph.D. 2020 I hereby declare that this thesis is my own work and it contains no other materials written or published by any other person except where due reference is made in the text of the thesis. Brno, May 2020 …..…………………… The thesis was completed within the cooperation framework between the Department of Chinese Studies (Masaryk University) and the Institute of China Studies (Zhejiang University). During my two- semester stay in China, the thesis was supervised by Prof. Jiang Wentao 姜文涛, Associate Professor in School of International Studies at Zhejiang University, China. ABSTRACT This thesis elaborates the self-loathing discourse in the theme of modernization in 20th century Chinese literature. The main question is how the discourse of self-loathing is elaborated in chosen works from the 20th century and how is it evolving during this century. This work is divided into four chapters. The first one contains the definition of self-loathing, the presentation of main historical events of the 20th century and philosophical changes in Chinese society during the 20th century. The second chapter presents the authors, their lives, creation, writing style and general attitude towards modernisation of Chinese society. The third chapter contains the discourse analysis of chosen literature works and presents the concrete examples of discourse of self-loathing, which were found. The cited examples of elaboration of self-loathing are followed by interpretation of these examples based on secondary literature sources. The analysis of examples of self-loathing discourse answers the question how the discourse of self-loathing is elaborated in chosen literature works. Furthermore, the examples set the base for the fourth chapter. The fourth chapter analyses different causes for discourse of self-loathing. The causes for self- loathing are found in concrete elaboration of self-loathing and they evolve during the 20th century. The reasons for self-loathing in general are political or social change, author´s personal experience with modernisation and therefore his attitude towards the modernisation. Finally, the analysis of this thesis proved that the discourse of self-loathing is present during the whole 20th century, the authors feel need to point out the problems of China and to call for improvement of Chinese nation till present. However, the reasons for self-loathing changed over time with evolution of Chinese society and its problems. KEYWORDS Discourse of self-loathing, Chinese literature, 20th century, Modernisation, Chinese nation, Improvement of Chinese nation, Evolution ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my supervisor Mgr. et Mgr. Dušan Vávra, Ph.D. for his guidance, valuable advices, interest, and time. I am also grateful for his help and patience during the writing process. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 9 1 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 16 1.1 Definition of the discourse of self-loathing 16 1.2 Historical background 20 1.3 Philosophical background 27 2 AUTHORS: BACKGROUND AND ATTITUDE TOWARDS MODERNISATION 33 2.1 Period 1900-1949 33 2.1.1 Huangjiang Diaosou 33 2.1.2 Liu E 33 2.1.3 Yu Dafu 34 2.1.4 Lu Xun 35 2.1.5 Lao She 36 2.1.6 Ba Jin 36 2.1.7 Shen Congwen 37 2.1.8 Chang Eileen 39 2.2 Period 1978-present 40 2.2.1 Wang Shuo 40 2.2.2 Mo Yan 41 2.2.3 Jiang Rong 41 2.2.4 Chan Koonchung 42 2.2.5 Yan Lianke 43 3 ANALYSIS OF THE CONCRETE LITERATURE WORKS 44 3.1 Period 1900-1949 44 3.1.1 Huangjiang Diaosou – Lunar Colony (月球殖民地小说) (1904) 44 3.1.2 Liu E – The Travels of Lao Can (老残游记) (1905) 47 3.1.3 Yu Dafu – Sinking (沉沦) (1921) 48 3.1.4 Lu Xun – Call to Arms (呐喊) (1922) 50 3.1.5 Lao She – Cat Country (猫城记) (1932) 54 3.1.6 Ba Jin – Family (家)(1933) 58 3.1.7 Shen Congwen – Shen Congwen´s Short-story Collection (沈 从文全集) (1928-1935) Seven Savages and the Last Welcome of Spring (1929); Meijin, Baozi and the White Kid (1929); The New and the Old (1935) 61 3.1.8 Chang Eileen – Lust, Caution (色，戒) (1940s-1979) 63 3.2 Period 1949-present 67 3.2.1 Wang Shuo – Please Don´t Call Me Human (千万别把我当人) (1989) 67 3.2.2 Mo Yan – The Republic of Wine (酒国) (1992) 69 3.2.3 Jiang Rong – Wolf Totem (狼图腾) (2004) 73 3.2.4 Chan Koonchung – The Fat Years (盛世一中国 2013 年) (2009) 75 3.2.5 Yan Lianke – The Explosion Chronicles (炸裂志) (2016) 76 4 ANALYSIS OF SELF-LOATHING EXAMPLES 80 CONCLUSION 84 BIBLIOGRAPHY 86 INTRODUCTION The 20th century in China was a century of a rapid change in all aspects of life. Not only was the political system of a country changed, but also the way of thinking, the structure of the Chinese society and the language. At the beginning of the century, China was still an empire ruled by the Qing dynasty and the social roles were established according to Confucian norms. The official written language, wenyan (wenyan 文言) in Chinese, was archaic and not understandable without many years of studying and education was inaccessible to the majority of people. In the end of the 20th century, China was already a modern state with fast economic development and western-type education. The transformation of China during the 20th century was marked by several wars and social instability. Besides the rapid change, the 20th century was also the century of humiliation and shame for Chinese nation. The two thousand years old Chinese culture, considered by Chinese people themselves as the only one existing and as a perfect one, was for a long time dominated by the foreign powers. (Bakešová, 2001, pp.5-6) China was divided and unable to fight the foreigners. Because of all mentioned above, China realised that change is necessary and started to search for an approach towards modernisation. The turbulent nature of the century is the reason why the 20th century literature is unique. The term of modernisation can be used with two connotations but in this thesis „modernization is used not strictly as a sociological term, but rather as a philosophical-sociological term in a broader sense. As a sociological term, it refers to various types of social change and their related issues or problems. As such, modernization entails multidimensional factors: scientific, technological, political, economic, institutional, etc.” (Soo,1989, p.4) And „as a philosophical term, it refers to intangible (or non-material) factors of social change, such as values, modes of thinking as well as the historical, cultural and spiritual heritage.” (Soo, 1989, p.4) Shortly, „…we consider China's modernization as a historical process of transformation from a 'traditional society' to a 'modern society'.” (Soo,1989, p.4) The intention of this thesis is to analyse selected literature works from the 20th century written by different Chinese writers and to compare the way each writer shows, writes and perceives the modernisation of the Chinese society, more precisely the self-loathing discourse in the theme of modernisation. The term “self-loathing” is used by Geremie Barmé in his work In the Red: On Contemporary Chinese Culture. Geremie Barmé describes the self-loathing as „introspection”, „self- reflection” or „self-criticism” (Barmé, 1999, p.266) of Chinese nation and society by Chinese intellectuals and scholars. It describes the particular characteristics in the literature works and also certain attitudes towards China and her inhabitants which can be found in Chinese literature written by Chinese writers from the 20th century. The particular characteristics and attitude toward China mentioned above are the feelings of self-hate and disgust toward the current state of China. The focus of this thesis are 9 the concepts used by Chinese authors in their own works to describe self-loathing in the modernisation process. The main questions are firstly, how the discourse of self-loathing is produced by Chinese authors and secondly, how is it evolving during the 20th century. The discourse of self-loathing arises from the feeling of insufficiency of China, which is strong during the 20th century because of the character of the century mentioned above. (Barmé, 1999, pp.266-267) Finally, the influences on the evolution of discourse of self-loathing will be presented in the last chapter. All the selected examples will be completed with accurate analysis of self-loathing examples. The main purpose of this thesis is to analyse the chosen literature works from the 20th century and to create a complex image of the feelings and approaches of the different writers towards the self- loathing. The intention of this thesis is to search for common points and for differences of self-loathing examples and clearly identify them. Because even until the present day the discourse of modernisation and self-loathing is still alive in Chinese literature and creates an important part of the discussion in society and still can evoke strong and antagonistic feelings. The discourse of modernisation and self-loathing of Chinese society are traditionally discussed in the context of historical events or in concrete literature works. It is not common to analyse examples from the entire 20th century. The most common approach is to divide the 20th century into shorter periods, for example The May Forth Movement, The Communist Literature, The Cultural Revolution etc.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • An Ethnography of the Spring Festival
    IMAGINING CHINA IN THE ERA OF GLOBAL CONSUMERISM AND LOCAL CONSCIOUSNESS: MEDIA, MOBILITY, AND THE SPRING FESTIVAL A dissertation presented to the faculty of the College of Communication of Ohio University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy Li Ren June 2003 This dissertation entitled IMAGINING CHINA IN THE ERA OF GLOBAL CONSUMERISM AND LOCAL CONSCIOUSNESS: MEDIA, MOBILITY AND THE SPRING FESTIVAL BY LI REN has been approved by the School of Interpersonal Communication and the College of Communication by Arvind Singhal Professor of Interpersonal Communication Timothy A. Simpson Professor of Interpersonal Communication Kathy Krendl Dean, College of Communication REN, LI. Ph.D. June 2003. Interpersonal Communication Imagining China in the Era of Global Consumerism and Local Consciousness: Media, Mobility, and the Spring Festival. (260 pp.) Co-directors of Dissertation: Arvind Singhal and Timothy A. Simpson Using the Spring Festival (the Chinese New Year) as a springboard for fieldwork and discussion, this dissertation explores the rise of electronic media and mobility in contemporary China and their effect on modern Chinese subjectivity, especially, the collective imagination of Chinese people. Informed by cultural studies and ethnographic methods, this research project consisted of 14 in-depth interviews with residents in Chengdu, China, ethnographic participatory observation of local festival activities, and analysis of media events, artifacts, documents, and online communication. The dissertation argues that “cultural China,” an officially-endorsed concept that has transformed a national entity into a borderless cultural entity, is the most conspicuous and powerful public imagery produced and circulated during the 2001 Spring Festival. As a work of collective imagination, cultural China creates a complex and contested space in which the Chinese Party-state, the global consumer culture, and individuals and local communities seek to gain their own ground with various strategies and tactics.
    [Show full text]
  • Burro Burro Phd
    UNIVERSITA’ DEGLI STUDI DI TRIESTE Sede Amministrativa del Dottorato di Ricerca IUAV – ISTITUTO UNIVERSITARIO DI ARCHITETTURA DI VENEZIA, UNIVERSITA’ DEGLI STUDI DI FERRARA, UNIVERSITA’ DEGLI STUDI DI UDINE, UNIVERSITA’ DEGLI STUDI DI SALERNO, UNIVERSITA’ DEL PIEMONTE ORIENTALE “AMEDEO AVOGADRO” NOVARA, UNIVERSITA’ DEGLI STUDI DEL SANNIO – BENEVENTO, UNIVERSITA’ DEGLI STUDI DI MESSINA, UNIVERSITA’ DEGLI STUDI DI NAPOLI “FEDERICO II”, UNIVERSITA’ PRIMORSKA DI KOPER, UNIVERSITA’ DI KLANGEFURT, UNIVERSITA’ DI MALTA Sedi Convenzionate SCUOLA DI DOTTORATO DI RICERCA IN SCIENZE DELL’UOMO, DEL TERRITORIO E DELLA SOCIETA’ INDIRIZZO IN GEOPOLITICA, GEOSTRATEGIA E GEOECONOMIA - XXIII CICLO (SETTORE SCIENTIFICO-DISCIPLINARE M-GGR/02) LA REPUBBLICA POPOLARE CINESE TRA NECESSITA’ ED AMBIZIONE DI UN’ADEGUATA STRATEGIA GEO-CULTURALE DOTTORANDO RELATORE Dott. ANDREA BURRO Chiar.ma Prof.ssa MARIA PAOLA PAGNINI Università degli Studi “Niccolò Cusano” - Telematica ANNO ACCADEMICO 2009-2010 Verschlossnen Augs, ihr Wunder nicht zu schauen, durchzog ich blind Italiens holde Auen. R. Wager, Tannhäuser. 2 INDICE INTRODUZIONE 5 LA CINA LABORATORIO DI NARRAZIONI GEOGRAFICHE IN BILICO FRA TRADIZIONE ED INNOVAZIONE 1.1 Falso immobilismo e miti fondatori 11 1.2 Evoluzione dell’impero cinese: centralizzazione e frammentazione 14 1.2.1 Dalle origini all’epoca dei Tre Regni 14 1.2.2 Dalla dinastia Tang alla dinastia Song 20 1.2.3 Dalla dinastia Yuan alla dinastia Qing 24 1.3 L’incontro con l’Occidente: crisi e tentativi di modernizzazione 36 1.3.1 Il pendolo della storia:
    [Show full text]
  • 2019 International Religious Freedom Report
    CHINA (INCLUDES TIBET, XINJIANG, HONG KONG, AND MACAU) 2019 INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM REPORT Executive Summary Reports on Hong Kong, Macau, Tibet, and Xinjiang are appended at the end of this report. The constitution, which cites the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and the guidance of Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought, states that citizens have freedom of religious belief but limits protections for religious practice to “normal religious activities” and does not define “normal.” Despite Chairman Xi Jinping’s decree that all members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) must be “unyielding Marxist atheists,” the government continued to exercise control over religion and restrict the activities and personal freedom of religious adherents that it perceived as threatening state or CCP interests, according to religious groups, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and international media reports. The government recognizes five official religions – Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Protestantism, and Catholicism. Only religious groups belonging to the five state- sanctioned “patriotic religious associations” representing these religions are permitted to register with the government and officially permitted to hold worship services. There continued to be reports of deaths in custody and that the government tortured, physically abused, arrested, detained, sentenced to prison, subjected to forced indoctrination in CCP ideology, or harassed adherents of both registered and unregistered religious groups for activities related to their religious beliefs and practices. There were several reports of individuals committing suicide in detention, or, according to sources, as a result of being threatened and surveilled. In December Pastor Wang Yi was tried in secret and sentenced to nine years in prison by a court in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, in connection to his peaceful advocacy for religious freedom.
    [Show full text]
  • Congressional-Executive Commission on China Annual
    CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA ANNUAL REPORT 2007 ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION OCTOBER 10, 2007 Printed for the use of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China ( Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.cecc.gov VerDate 11-MAY-2000 01:22 Oct 11, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 6011 Sfmt 5011 38026.TXT CHINA1 PsN: CHINA1 2007 ANNUAL REPORT VerDate 11-MAY-2000 01:22 Oct 11, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 6019 Sfmt 6019 38026.TXT CHINA1 PsN: CHINA1 CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA ANNUAL REPORT 2007 ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION OCTOBER 10, 2007 Printed for the use of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China ( Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.cecc.gov U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 38–026 PDF WASHINGTON : 2007 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800 Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001 VerDate 11-MAY-2000 01:22 Oct 11, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 5011 Sfmt 5011 38026.TXT CHINA1 PsN: CHINA1 VerDate 11-MAY-2000 01:22 Oct 11, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 5011 Sfmt 5011 38026.TXT CHINA1 PsN: CHINA1 CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA LEGISLATIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS House Senate SANDER M. LEVIN, Michigan, Chairman BYRON DORGAN, North Dakota, Co-Chairman MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio MAX BAUCUS, Montana TOM UDALL, New Mexico CARL LEVIN, Michigan MICHAEL M. HONDA, California DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California TIM WALZ, Minnesota SHERROD BROWN, Ohio CHRISTOPHER H.
    [Show full text]
  • China As Dystopia: Cultural Imaginings Through Translation Published In: Translation Studies (Taylor and Francis) Doi: 10.1080/1
    China as dystopia: Cultural imaginings through translation Published in: Translation Studies (Taylor and Francis) doi: 10.1080/14781700.2015.1009937 Tong King Lee* School of Chinese, The University of Hong Kong *Email: [email protected] This article explores how China is represented in English translations of contemporary Chinese literature. It seeks to uncover the discourses at work in framing this literature for reception by an Anglophone readership, and to suggest how these discourses dovetail with meta-narratives on China circulating in the West. In addition to asking “what gets translated”, the article is interested in how Chinese authors and their works are positioned, marketed, and commodified in the West through the discursive material that surrounds a translated book. Drawing on English translations of works by Yan Lianke, Ma Jian, Chan Koonchung, Yu Hua, Su Tong, and Mo Yan, the article argues that literary translation is part of a wider programme of Anglophone textual practices that renders China an overdetermined sign pointing to a repressive, dystopic Other. The knowledge structures governing these textual practices circumscribe the ways in which China is imagined and articulated, thereby producing a discursive China. Keywords: translated Chinese literature; censorship; paratext; cultural politics; Yan Lianke Translated Literature, Global Circulations 1 In 2007, Yan Lianke (b.1958), a novelist who had garnered much critical attention in his native China but was relatively unknown in the Anglophone world, made his English debut with the novel Serve the People!, a translation by Julia Lovell of his Wei renmin fuwu (2005). The front cover of the book, published by London’s Constable,1 pictures two Chinese cadets in a kissing posture, against a white background with radiating red stripes.
    [Show full text]
  • Critique of Anthropology
    Critique of Anthropology http://coa.sagepub.com/ The state of irony in China Hans Steinmüller Critique of Anthropology 2011 31: 21 DOI: 10.1177/0308275X10393434 The online version of this article can be found at: http://coa.sagepub.com/content/31/1/21 Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com Additional services and information for Critique of Anthropology can be found at: Email Alerts: http://coa.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://coa.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav Citations: http://coa.sagepub.com/content/31/1/21.refs.html >> Version of Record - Mar 30, 2011 What is This? Downloaded from coa.sagepub.com at NATIONAL CHENGCHI UNIV LIB on February 23, 2012 Article Critique of Anthropology 31(1) 21–42 The state of irony ! The Author(s) 2011 Reprints and permissions: in China sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0308275X10393434 coa.sagepub.com Hans Steinmu¨ller Department of Anthropology, London School of Economics Abstract In everyday life, people in China as elsewhere have to confront large-scale incongruities between different representations of history and state. They do so frequently by way of indirection, that is, by taking ironic, cynical or embarrassed positions. Those who understand such indirect expressions based on a shared experiential horizon form what I call a ‘community of complicity’. In examples drawn from everyday politics of memory, the representation of local development programmes and a dystopic novel, I distinguish cynicism and ‘true’ irony as two different ways to form such communities. This distinction proposes a renewed attempt at understanding social inclusion and exclusion.
    [Show full text]
  • Confucianism, "Cultural Tradition" and Official Discourses in China at the Start of the New Century
    China Perspectives 2007/3 | 2007 Creating a Harmonious Society Confucianism, "cultural tradition" and official discourses in China at the start of the new century Sébastien Billioud Édition électronique URL : http://journals.openedition.org/chinaperspectives/2033 DOI : 10.4000/chinaperspectives.2033 ISSN : 1996-4617 Éditeur Centre d'étude français sur la Chine contemporaine Édition imprimée Date de publication : 15 septembre 2007 ISSN : 2070-3449 Référence électronique Sébastien Billioud, « Confucianism, "cultural tradition" and official discourses in China at the start of the new century », China Perspectives [En ligne], 2007/3 | 2007, mis en ligne le 01 septembre 2010, consulté le 14 novembre 2019. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/chinaperspectives/2033 ; DOI : 10.4000/chinaperspectives.2033 © All rights reserved Special feature s e v Confucianism, “Cultural i a t c n i e Tradition,” and Official h p s c r Discourse in China at the e p Start of the New Century SÉBASTIEN BILLIOUD This article explores the reference to traditional culture and Confucianism in official discourses at the start of the new century. It shows the complexity and the ambiguity of the phenomenon and attempts to analyze it within the broader framework of society’s evolving relation to culture. armony (hexie 和谐 ), the rule of virtue ( yi into allusions made in official discourse, we are interested de zhi guo 以德治国 ): for the last few years in another general and imprecise category: cultural tradi - Hthe consonance suggested by slogans and tion ( wenhua chuantong ) or traditional cul - 文化传统 themes mobilised by China’s leadership has led to spec - ture ( chuantong wenhua 传统文化 ). ((1) However, we ulation concerning their relationship to Confucianism or, are excluding from the domain of this study the entire as - more generally, to China’s classical cultural tradition.
    [Show full text]
  • The Global Politics of China
    The Global Politics of China Instructor: Daniel Large Instructor Contact: [email protected] Department: School of Public Policy, Central European University Number of Credits: 2. Teaching Format: Seminar. Semester: Winter 2019. Course Status: Elective. Office Hours: Tuesday 4-5pm, October 6 u. 7, 2nd floor, Office 241. Course Description This course provides an intensive introduction to the global politics of China. As well as a crucial intellectual challenge today, China is increasingly important for a range of policy engagements. While China has become globally prominent in recent times, this course is not just about current affairs or foreign policy per se. It also explores how China came to be in its current circumstances, and the interconnections between China’s ‘domestic’ and ‘global’ relations. The first part of the course explores the politics of history and China’s modern historical trajectory. Going beyond a unitary conception of the Chinese state, the second part examines the nature and domestic sources of China’s foreign policy before exploring key themes in its global politics. Finally, it analyses China’s changing engagement with and role in global governance. Throughout, it will involve active learning. Learning Goals and Outcomes This course aims to provide an intensive orientation to the changing global politics of China. While providing a structured framework to achieve this, it also seeks to enable individual learning pathways and enhance analytical, writing and verbal skills. By the end of the course, students should be able to: • Understand the historical trajectory behind China’s current world role, and the politics of history; • Understand the interplay between China’s domestic and global politics; • Critically assess and engage debates about China’s (re)emergence and evolving global role; • Undertake further, more indepth study into the global politics of China.
    [Show full text]
  • The 1989 Tiananmen Square Protests in Chinese Fiction and Film
    UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Making the Censored Public: The 1989 Tiananmen Square Protests in Chinese Fiction and Film A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Comparative Literature by Thomas Chen Chen 2016 © Copyright by Thomas Chen Chen 2016 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Making the Censored Public: The 1989 Tiananmen Square Protests in Chinese Fiction and Film by Thomas Chen Chen Doctor of Philosophy in Comparative Literature University of California, Los Angeles, 2016 Professor Kirstie M. McClure, Co-Chair Professor Robert Yee-Sin Chi, Co-Chair Initiated by Beijing college students, the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests—"Tiananmen"— shook all of China with their calls for democratic and social reforms. They were violently repressed by the Chinese state on June 4, 1989. Since then, their memory has been subject within the country to two kinds of censorship. First, a government campaign promulgating the official narrative of Tiananmen, while simultaneously forbidding all others, lasted into 1991. What followed was the surcease of Tiananmen propaganda and an expansion of silencing to nearly all mentions that has persisted to this day. My dissertation examines fiction and film that evoke Tiananmen from within mainland China and Hong Kong. It focuses on materials that are particularly open to a self-reflexive reading, such as literature in which the protagonists are writers and films shot without authorization that in their editing indicate the precarious ii circumstances of their making. These works act out the contestation between the state censorship of Tiananmen-related discourse on the one hand and its alternative imagination on the other, thereby opening up a discursive space, however fragile, for a Chinese audience to reconfigure a historical memory whose physical space is off limits.
    [Show full text]
  • Post-Cold War Experimental Theatre of China: Staging Globalisation and Its Resistance
    Post-Cold War Experimental Theatre of China: Staging Globalisation and Its Resistance Zheyu Wei A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The School of Creative Arts The University of Dublin, Trinity College 2017 Declaration I declare that this thesis has not been submitted as an exercise for a degree at this or any other university and it is my own work. I agree to deposit this thesis in the University’s open access institutional repository or allow the library to do so on my behalf, subject to Irish Copyright Legislation and Trinity College Library Conditions of use and acknowledgement. ___________________ Zheyu Wei ii Summary This thesis is a study of Chinese experimental theatre from the year 1990 to the year 2014, to examine the involvement of Chinese theatre in the process of globalisation – the increasingly intensified relationship between places that are far away from one another but that are connected by the movement of flows on a global scale and the consciousness of the world as a whole. The central argument of this thesis is that Chinese post-Cold War experimental theatre has been greatly influenced by the trend of globalisation. This dissertation discusses the work of a number of representative figures in the “Little Theatre Movement” in mainland China since the 1980s, e.g. Lin Zhaohua, Meng Jinghui, Zhang Xian, etc., whose theatrical experiments have had a strong impact on the development of contemporary Chinese theatre, and inspired a younger generation of theatre practitioners. Through both close reading of literary and visual texts, and the inspection of secondary texts such as interviews and commentaries, an overview of performances mirroring the age-old Chinese culture’s struggle under the unprecedented modernising and globalising pressure in the post-Cold War period will be provided.
    [Show full text]
  • Download the Full Issue
    East Asian History NUMBER 41 • AUGUST 2017 www.eastasianhistory.org CONTENTS 1–2 Guest Editor’s Preface Shih-Wen Sue Chen 3–14 ‘Aspiring to Enlightenment’: Buddhism and Atheism in 1980s China Scott Pacey 15–24 Activist Practitioners in the Qigong Boom of the 1980s Utiraruto Otehode and Benjamin Penny 25–40 Displaced Fantasy: Pulp Science Fiction in the Early Reform Era of the People’s Republic Of China Rui Kunze 王瑞 41–48 The Emergence of Independent Minds in the 1980s Liu Qing 刘擎 49–56 1984: What’s Been Lost and What’s Been Gained Sang Ye 桑晔 57–71 Intellectual Men and Women in the 1980s Fiction of Huang Beijia 黄蓓佳 Li Meng 李萌 online Chinese Magazines of the 1980s: An Online Exhibition only Curated by Shih-Wen Sue Chen Editor Benjamin Penny, The Australian National University Guest Editor Shih-Wen Sue Chen, Deakin University Editorial Assistant Lindy Allen Editorial Board Geremie R. Barmé (Founding Editor) Katarzyna Cwiertka (Leiden) Roald Maliangkay (ANU) Ivo Smits (Leiden) Tessa Morris-Suzuki (ANU) Design and production Lindy Allen and Katie Hayne Print PDFs based on an original design by Maureen MacKenzie-Taylor This is the forty-first issue of East Asian History, the fourth published in electronic form, August 2017. It continues the series previously entitled Papers on Far Eastern History. Contributions to www.eastasianhistory.org/contribute Back issues www.eastasianhistory.org/archive To cite this journal, use page numbers from PDF versions ISSN (electronic) 1839-9010 Copyright notice Copyright for the intellectual content of each paper is retained by its author.
    [Show full text]
  • Replace This with the Actual Title Using All Caps
    INVENTING A WOLFISH CHINA - ON JIANG RONG’S WOLF TOTEM A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts by Dongming Shen August 2012 © 2012 Dongming Shen ABSTRACT The Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong has won great success both in and out of China. Jiang Rong criticizes Han Chinese and embraces the culture of the northern ethnic minority group, the Mongols, because of its stronger sense of competition and domination. In the epilogue of this novel, Jiang argues that the wolf totem was the most ancient totem for all Chinese people and retells Chinese history using this framework. This paper explores the background of the novel and its author, as well as supporting materials the author uses in his proposal concerning the wolf totem, and suggests that the wolf totem is a purely ideological invention of Jiang Rong. This invention reflects Jiang’s own philosophy and caters to the cultural needs of modern Chinese people. In inventing the wolf totem, the author uses historical documents, archeological findings, as well as a far-fetched bodily metaphor. However, none of this evidence is validated by scholarly research. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Dongming Shen is currently a graduate student in the Department of Asian Studies at Cornell University. Her field is East Asian Studies. Her research interests include Chinese mythology and Christianity in late imperial China. She received her undergraduate degree in English Literature and Social Science Studies at Nanjing University and her Master of Public Administration at Cornell University.
    [Show full text]