Transpacific Community - America, China, and the Rise and Fall of a Global Cultural Network

In the turbulent years after World War I, a transpacific community of American and Chinese writers and artists emerged to forge new ideas regarding aesthetics, democracy, internationalism, and the political possibilities of art. Breaking with preconceived notions of an "exotic" East, the Americans found in China and in the works of Chinese intellectuals inspiration for leftist and civil rights movements. Chinese writers and intellectuals looked to the American tradition of political democracy to inform an emerging Chinese liberalism. This interaction reflected an unprecedented integration of American and Chinese cultures and a remarkable synthesis of shared ideals and political goals.The transpacific community that came together during this time took advantage of new advances in technology and media, such as the telegraph and radio, to accelerate the exchange of ideas. It created a fast-paced, cross-cultural dialogue that transformed the terms by which the United States and China--or, more broadly, "West" and "East"--knew each other.__Transpacific Community__follows the left-wing journalist Agnes Smedley's campaign to free the author Ding Ling from prison; Pearl Buck's attempt to fuse Jeffersonian democracy with late Qing visions of equality in__The Good Earth__; Paul Robeson's collaboration with the musician Liu Liangmo, which drew on Chinese and African American traditions; and the writer Lin Yutang's attempt to create a typewriter for Chinese characters. Together, these individuals produced political projects that synthesized American and Chinese visions of equality and democracy and imagined a new course for East-West relations. In the turbulent years after World War I, a transpacific community of American and Chinese writers and artists emerged to forge new ideas regarding aesthetics, democracy, internationalism, and the political possibilities of art. Breaking with preconceived notions of an "exotic" East, the Americans found in China and in the works of Chinese intellectuals inspiration for leftist and civil rights movements. Chinese writers and intellectuals looked to the American tradition of political democracy to inform an emerging Chinese liberalism. This interaction reflected an unprecedented integration of American and Chinese cultures and a remarkable synthesis of shared ideals and political goals. The transpacific community that came together during this time took advantage of new advances in technology and media, such as the telegraph and radio, to accelerate the exchange of ideas. It created a fast-paced, cross-cultural dialogue that transformed the terms by which the United States and China--or, more broadly, "West" and "East"--knew each other. Transpacific Community follows the left-wing journalist Agnes Smedley's campaign to free the author Ding Ling from prison; Pearl Buck's attempt to fuse Jeffersonian democracy with late Qing visions of equality in The Good Earth ; Paul Robeson's collaboration with the musician Liu Liangmo, which drew on Chinese and African American traditions; and the writer Lin Yutang's attempt to create a typewriter for Chinese characters. Together, these individuals produced political projects that synthesized American and Chinese visions of equality and democracy and imagined a new course for East-West relations. Table of Contents 6 List of Illustrations 8 Acknowledgments 10 Introduction: The Narrowing Circle: America and China Circa 1929 14 1. Long-Distance Realism: Agnes Smedley and the Transpacific Cultural Front 44 2. The Good Earth Effect: Pearl Buck and Natural Democracy 84 3. Pentatonic Democracy: Paul Robeson and the Black Voice in Chinese 126 4. Typographic Ethnic Modernism: Lin Yutang and the Republican Chinaman 165 5. Xuanchuan as World Literature: Lao She and the Uses of Global Propaganda 209 Epilogue: The Afterlife of Failure: Recentering Asian American and Chinese Histories 254 Notes 262 Index 290 In The Turbulent Years After World War I, American And Chinese Cultural Figures Sought To Transform The Terms By Which The United States And China Or, More Broadly, East And West Knew Each Other. Individually, They Produced Works That Altered American Conceptions Of China And Vice Versa. Together, They Collaborated On Political Projects That Synthesized American And Chinese Visions Of Equality. Their Transpacific Community Upset Traditional Routes Of Power And Articulated A New Course For East-west Cultural Exchange.