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Who are the new Chinese intellectuals? In the wake of the crackdown on the 1989 democracy movement and the rapid marketization of the 1990s, a novel type of grassroots intellectual emerged. Instead of harking back to the traditional role of the literati or pronouncing on democracy and modernity like 1980s public intellectuals, they derive legitimacy from their work with the vulnerable and the marginalized, often proclaiming their independence with a heavy dose of anti-elitist rhetoric. They are proudly minjian—unofficial, unaffiliated, and among the people. In this book, Sebastian Veg explores the rise of minjian intellectuals and how they have profoundly transformed China’s public cultu...
This volume develops a new style of reading Chinese sources, as pioneered in Chinese Studies by Professor Glen Dudbridge, providing fascinating new insights into Chinese literature, history and popular culture. The analysis of self-fashioning, representation and political propaganda sheds new light on Chinese perceptions of the world.
This volume examines the most spectacular struggle for democracy in post-handover Hong Kong. Bringing together scholars with different disciplinary focuses and comparative perspectives from mainland China, Taiwan and Macau, one common thread that stitches the chapters is the use of first-hand data collected through on-site fieldwork. This study unearths how trajectories can create favourable conditions for the spontaneous civil resistance despite the absence of political opportunities and surveys the dynamics through which the protestors, the regime and the wider public responses differently to the prolonged contentious space. *The Umbrella Movement: Civil Resistance and Contentious Space in Hong Kong* offers an informed analysis of the political future of Hong Kong and its relations with the authoritarian sovereignty as well as sheds light on the methodological challenges and promises in studying modern-day protests.
In Postsocialist Conditions: Idea and History in China’s “Independent Cinema,” 1988-2008, WANG Xiaoping offers a comprehensive survey and trenchant critique of China’s “Independent Cinema” by the sixth-generation auteurs. By showing the multi-valence of the postsocialist conditions in contemporary Chinese society, their films articulate a new cultural-political logic in postsocialist China, which is also the logic of the market in this era of neoliberal transformation, brought about by the forces of marketization since the late 1980s. The directors laudably show the spirits of humanism and the humanitarian concerns of the underclass, yet the shortage and repudiation of class analysis prohibits the artists from exploring the social contradictions and the cause of class restructuration.
The 1989 pro-democracy movement in China constituted a huge challenge to the survival of the Chinese communist state, and the efforts of the Chinese Communist party to erase the memory of the massacre testify to its importance. This consisted of six weeks of massive pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing and over 300 other cities, led by students, who in Beijing engaged in a hunger strike which drew wide public support. Their actions provoked repression from the regime, which - after internal debate - decided to suppress the movement with force, leading to a still-unknown number of deaths in Beijing and a period of heightened repression throughout the country. This book assesses the impact ...
Socialist Cosmopolitanism offers an innovative interpretation of literary works from the Mao era that reads Chinese socialist literature as world literature. As Nicolai Volland demonstrates, after 1949 China engaged with the world beyond its borders in a variety of ways and on many levels—politically, economically, and culturally. Far from rejecting the worldliness of earlier eras, the young People's Republic developed its own cosmopolitanism. Rather than a radical break with the past, Chinese socialist literature should be seen as an integral and important chapter in China's long search to find a place within world literature. Socialist Cosmopolitanism revisits a range of genres, from poe...
This Handbook offers a rich survey of topics concerning historical, modern and contemporary Chinese genders and sexualities. Exploring gender and sexuality as key dimensions of China’s modernisation and globalisation, this Handbook effectively situates Chinese gender and sexuality in transnational and transcultural contexts. It also spotlights nonnormative practices and emancipatory potentials within mainstream, heterosexual-dominated and patriarchally structured settings. It serves as a definitive study, research and resource guide for emerging gender and sexuality issues in the Chinese-speaking world. This Handbook covers interdisciplinary methodologies, perspectives and topics, including: History Literature Art Fashion Migration Translation Sex and desire Film and television Digital media Star and fan cultures Fantasies and lives of women and LGBTQ+ groups Social movements Transnational feminist and queer politics Paying acute attention to nonnormative genders and sexualities and emphasising the intersectionality of gender, sexuality, nationality, ethnicity and class, this Handbook offers an essential, field-defining text to Chinese gender and sexuality studies.
How can a dictatorship cope with the legacy of injustices and atrocities committed in its own name? This was one of the pressing questions the Chinese Communist Party leadership faced after the death of Mao Zedong in September 1976 and the end of the Cultural Revolution. This collection presents ground-breaking, original research to address the question of historical justice in the Party's attempt to survive politically despite rampant factionalism and widespread political persecution. The volume traces complex questions of property restitution, fostering reconciliation within local communities, and establishing new standards of truth. Contributions also investigate how various actors remember the period in the present. The post-Mao period provides a lens through which to view strategies of coping with a violent past under state socialism, highlighting how selectively applied approaches now associated with the concept of transitional justice may even serve to strengthen rather than subvert authoritarian rule.
This is the first independent, full-life biography of Lu Xun, the most celebrated Chinese writer of the twentieth century, in any European language. It sets aside all the propaganda that has accrued over the sixty-six years since his death, and presents him as a credible human being, neither aggrandized nor belittled. While taking on board the findings of the most recent research on Lu Xun's life, and so being of interest to specialists, this biography is designed to be understood by any reader. As Lu Xun's life spanned the transition from Manchu empire to citizens' Republic, it can be seen as one man's history of China's progress to modernity—a progress in which he personally played a significant part. The facts of Lu Xun's life are presented objectively, but they do not always speak for themselves. The author has therefore drawn on his lifelong study of modern Chinese literature to offer intelligent interpretations where necessary. Since the subject of this biography was a writer, the author has appended to the chronicle some brief 'sketches' of his work for the benefit of those unacquainted with it.