Public Discourses of Contemporary China : The Narration of the Nation in Popular Literatures, Film, and Television

Analyzing contemporary Chinese literature, film, and television, Shen shows the significance of nationalism for the mass imagination in post-socialist China. Chapters move from the intellectual idealism of the 1980s, through the post-Tiananmen transition, to the national cinema of the 1990s, and finally to the Internet literature of today. Exploring contemporary Chinese literature, film, and television, Yipeng Shen sheds light on the historical significance of nationalism for mass imagination and identification in the less-than-democratic system of China for the past three decades. Analyzing cultural products from a wide range of media, chapters move from the intellectual idealism of the 1980s, through the post-Tiananmen transition, to the national cinema of the 1990s, and finally to the Internet literature of today. Public Discourses of Contemporary China argues that Chinese subjects have, to varying degrees, transformed the state project of modernization into their own through mass aestheticization of the nation "This book explores the ways the narration of the nation in popular literatures, film, and television gives rise to various public discourses of contemporary China, and defines social subjects such as intellectuals, netizens, media elites, and state-sponsored filmmakers. It argues that these subjects have, to varying degrees, transformed the state project of modernization into their own through mass aestheticization of the nation, whereby postsocialist politics is contingent upon and performative through national aesthetics. By analyzing cultural products from a wide range of media, including the Internet, this book sheds light on the historical significance of nationalism for mass imagination and identification in the less-than-democratic system of China for the past three decades."-- Provided by publisher Front Matter....Pages i-ix Introduction....Pages 1-23 Heshang: Socialist Historical Consciousness in Transformation and the 1980s Pedagogy of Reform....Pages 25-63 Making Money Is Patriotic: New Immigrant Fiction of the Early 1990s....Pages 65-101 Patriotism, History, and Leitmotif Films in the Late 1990s....Pages 103-134 Netizens, Counter-Memories, and Internet Literature into the New Millennium....Pages 135-168 Conclusion: Dreams in the Twenty-First Century....Pages 169-177 Back Matter....Pages 179-227