Pub Date : 2020-10-01DOI: 10.1215/25783491-8690388
Liangzi Shi
At the turn of the twentieth century Chinese sexuality underwent a metamorphosis, resulting in the replacement of a rich indigenous discourse by imported Western theories. This article traces the evolution of a modern subject and episteme emerging from the historical transformation in the area of same-sex relations and delineates the perspectives and values that clashed in the encounter of cultures. A key text the author examines is an official decree of 1912 that outlawed xianggong houses in Beijing, signifying the death of the custom of xianggong, which it condemned, in new Western terms, as decadent, immoral, and disgraceful. The study analyzes indigenous terms such as mojing 磨鏡 (mirror rubbing) and nanfeng 男風 (male wind) and compares them with their replacements, for example, tongxing'ai 同性愛 and tongxinglian 同性戀 (homosexuality), to illuminate the differences in their social-historical significations. The author concludes that the Republican era witnessed the construction of a new sexual taxonomy centered on the dichotomy of heterosexuality and homosexuality.
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This article focuses on contemporary Chinese film director Jia Zhangke 賈樟柯 (b. 1970–) and his engagement with what critical/cultural theorist Fredric Jameson (b. 1934- ) calls geopolitical aesthetics or cognitive mapping. Through the county-level city (xiancheng 縣城) perspective, the block (bankuai 板塊) structure, the interplay of real and fictional, and the intertextual and transmedial references, Jia explores the possibilities of representational forms and aspires to map and scan the otherwise unrepresentable totality that is global capitalism in China. In this essay, the author engages with Jia's film Shijie 世界 (The World; 2004) and examines the portrayal of the migrant workers and their performances in the World Park in Beijing, China. Focusing on political economy and social class, he suggests that The World renders visible the dialectic of mobility and immobility of the migrant workers within the context of global capitalism in China. Shifting gears to gender, he explains how the female migrant workers, dressed in lavish and extravagant costumes and performing exotic dances for the tourists in the World Park, can be regarded as a productive site for deciphering the otherwise imperceptible contradictions of globalizing China. In particular, the author analyzes the film's opening sequence to show that the world featured on-screen is located at the disjuncture between reality and fantasy.
{"title":"The Geopolitical Aesthetics","authors":"Calvin Hui","doi":"10.2307/j.ctv15d7zzk.14","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv15d7zzk.14","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article focuses on contemporary Chinese film director Jia Zhangke 賈樟柯 (b. 1970–) and his engagement with what critical/cultural theorist Fredric Jameson (b. 1934- ) calls geopolitical aesthetics or cognitive mapping. Through the county-level city (xiancheng 縣城) perspective, the block (bankuai 板塊) structure, the interplay of real and fictional, and the intertextual and transmedial references, Jia explores the possibilities of representational forms and aspires to map and scan the otherwise unrepresentable totality that is global capitalism in China. In this essay, the author engages with Jia's film Shijie 世界 (The World; 2004) and examines the portrayal of the migrant workers and their performances in the World Park in Beijing, China. Focusing on political economy and social class, he suggests that The World renders visible the dialectic of mobility and immobility of the migrant workers within the context of global capitalism in China. Shifting gears to gender, he explains how the female migrant workers, dressed in lavish and extravagant costumes and performing exotic dances for the tourists in the World Park, can be regarded as a productive site for deciphering the otherwise imperceptible contradictions of globalizing China. In particular, the author analyzes the film's opening sequence to show that the world featured on-screen is located at the disjuncture between reality and fantasy.","PeriodicalId":33692,"journal":{"name":"PRISM","volume":"86 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75016883","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-03-01DOI: 10.1215/25783491-8163896
Géraldine Fiss
{"title":"The Chinese Political Novel: Migration of a World Genre","authors":"Géraldine Fiss","doi":"10.1215/25783491-8163896","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/25783491-8163896","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":33692,"journal":{"name":"PRISM","volume":"547 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85357839","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-03-01DOI: 10.1215/25783491-8163857
Jianmei Liu
This article aims to investigate the roles Liu Zaifu has played in his three voyages of life. As an outspoken writer and public intellectual who rose to prominence in China during the early 1980s, Liu was a typical pioneer and enlightener, as well as a leading literary theorist involved in the construction of a rising China who reflected on the existing cultural-literary paradigm dominated by Marxist ideology. After going into exile in the United States in 1989, he commenced his second life journey by retreating to a personal space while embracing an aesthetic of wandering. He took advantage of the peripheries of both Western and Chinese cultures to discover the location of the “third zone” from which to return to the original self and the pure heart influenced by Zen Buddhism. In his third life journey, he completely identified with a cosmopolitan status, which enabled him to transcend political and cultural boundaries. Liu's three distinct roles at three different stages of life—a Chinese scholar, an exile, a cosmopolitan—exemplify a fluctuating spiritual odyssey of a Chinese intellectual whose profoundly multifarious oeuvre is intertwined with his quest for personal freedom in literature.
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Pub Date : 2020-03-01DOI: 10.1215/25783491-8163825
Liu Zaifu, Yijiao Guo
In this speech, Liu Zaifu thoroughly discusses the history of the May Fourth movement and the New Culture movement in the whole last century and the circumstances of humanity in China. In his explanation, May Fourth could be conceptualized through three different groups of concepts: the cultural May Fourth and the political May Fourth, the New Culture movement and the New Literature movement, and the masculine May Fourth and the feminine May Fourth. Liu regards the May Fourth spirit as a complete failure, in terms of six symbolic signs: (1) the mass spiritual suicide of Guo Moruo and the Creation Society, (2) the failure of humanity, (3) the elimination of individuality and personality, (4) the reversal of the enlightenment subject, (5) the devastation of the world vision, and (6) the failure of aesthetic practice. Liu also shares his two struggles. The first struggle in the 1980s was to reconstruct the subjectivity and dignity of people. After going abroad, he started the second struggle in exiling the gods, by which he endeavored to free himself from the four major spiritual chains: revolutionary thinking, the idolatry of nation, all the political ideologies, and dualistic thinking.
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Pub Date : 2020-03-01DOI: 10.1215/25783491-8163817
X. Tian
Originating in Japan, “boys love” (BL) manga and fiction that focus on romantic or homoerotic male-male relationships are considered by most of their writers, readers, and scholars to be primarily by women and for women and are purposely differentiated from gay fiction and manga by both commentators and practitioners. However, BL's increasing interweaving with homosexuality and sexual minorities in China requires scholars to reread and redefine BL practice in its Chinese context. This article discusses some of the recent transformations of the BL genre in China, examines the significant role female practitioners have played in indigenizing BL, and ultimately points to the trend of consciously writing and reading BL through a homosexual lens. By reflexively constructing “gayness” in BL works, these practices have also created a peer-led educational space on nonnormative sexuality and gender identity. The author also examines how BL “poaches” official and mainstream cultures, resulting in their considering BL the primary fictional vehicle of homosexuality. She therefore suggests that the trend of conflating BL with homosexuality and the deliberate homosexualization of BL in both texts and real life have ultimately extended the cultural identity of BL, as well as its political meaning, and in practice have created a porous culture that welcomes gender diversity and helps increase the visibility of the gay community, revealing a significant social and cultural shift that cannot be ignored or reversed.
{"title":"Homosexualizing “Boys Love” in China","authors":"X. Tian","doi":"10.1215/25783491-8163817","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/25783491-8163817","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Originating in Japan, “boys love” (BL) manga and fiction that focus on romantic or homoerotic male-male relationships are considered by most of their writers, readers, and scholars to be primarily by women and for women and are purposely differentiated from gay fiction and manga by both commentators and practitioners. However, BL's increasing interweaving with homosexuality and sexual minorities in China requires scholars to reread and redefine BL practice in its Chinese context. This article discusses some of the recent transformations of the BL genre in China, examines the significant role female practitioners have played in indigenizing BL, and ultimately points to the trend of consciously writing and reading BL through a homosexual lens. By reflexively constructing “gayness” in BL works, these practices have also created a peer-led educational space on nonnormative sexuality and gender identity. The author also examines how BL “poaches” official and mainstream cultures, resulting in their considering BL the primary fictional vehicle of homosexuality. She therefore suggests that the trend of conflating BL with homosexuality and the deliberate homosexualization of BL in both texts and real life have ultimately extended the cultural identity of BL, as well as its political meaning, and in practice have created a porous culture that welcomes gender diversity and helps increase the visibility of the gay community, revealing a significant social and cultural shift that cannot be ignored or reversed.","PeriodicalId":33692,"journal":{"name":"PRISM","volume":"17 1","pages":"104-126"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88279913","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-03-01DOI: 10.1215/25783491-8163833
D. Wang
Liu Zaifu is one of the most influential critics in the New Era after the Cultural Revolution. His works, such as On Literary Subjectivity (1985) and A Treatise of Character Composition (1986), inspired a generation of Chinese youth yearning for intellectual breakthroughs. After June 4, 1989, however, Liu's life took unexpected twists and turns. He exiled himself overseas, finally settling down in the United States. In the ensuing three decades, he has produced dozens of books, articles, and essays, some of which—including Farwell to Revolution (1995)—have become instant classics. However, in terms of personal engagement and reflective intensity, his forthcoming Five Autobiographical Accounts outstrips his other, prior work. This article seeks to describe Liu's intellectual and personal adventures in light of his autobiography. The year 2019 marks the thirtieth anniversary of the June Fourth democracy movement, as well as Liu's self-exile; the seventieth anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China (1949); and most important, the centennial of the May Fourth movement (1919). Juxtaposed against one another, these dates compel us to reflect on the high hopes and bitter outcomes, grand projects and failed expectations, that informed China's century-long pursuit of modernity.
{"title":"“Standing Alone atop the Mountain, Walking Freely under the Sea”","authors":"D. Wang","doi":"10.1215/25783491-8163833","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/25783491-8163833","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Liu Zaifu is one of the most influential critics in the New Era after the Cultural Revolution. His works, such as On Literary Subjectivity (1985) and A Treatise of Character Composition (1986), inspired a generation of Chinese youth yearning for intellectual breakthroughs. After June 4, 1989, however, Liu's life took unexpected twists and turns. He exiled himself overseas, finally settling down in the United States. In the ensuing three decades, he has produced dozens of books, articles, and essays, some of which—including Farwell to Revolution (1995)—have become instant classics. However, in terms of personal engagement and reflective intensity, his forthcoming Five Autobiographical Accounts outstrips his other, prior work. This article seeks to describe Liu's intellectual and personal adventures in light of his autobiography. The year 2019 marks the thirtieth anniversary of the June Fourth democracy movement, as well as Liu's self-exile; the seventieth anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China (1949); and most important, the centennial of the May Fourth movement (1919). Juxtaposed against one another, these dates compel us to reflect on the high hopes and bitter outcomes, grand projects and failed expectations, that informed China's century-long pursuit of modernity.","PeriodicalId":33692,"journal":{"name":"PRISM","volume":"88 1","pages":"143-156"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75885410","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-03-01DOI: 10.1215/25783491-8163785
P. Zamperini
This article focuses on Eileen Chang's “Xinjing” to map and understand the ways in which the author depicts different types of emotional, erotic, sexual, and psychological flows and exchanges among parents, children, and their partners and spouses. “Xinjing” is here read in conversation with a wide array of other sources, first and foremost the middle and late Qing literary heritage that so greatly occupied and influenced Chang's own literary universe and pursuits, as well as the westernized literary milieu in which she lived and operated in 1940s Shanghai.
{"title":"A Family Romance","authors":"P. Zamperini","doi":"10.1215/25783491-8163785","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/25783491-8163785","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article focuses on Eileen Chang's “Xinjing” to map and understand the ways in which the author depicts different types of emotional, erotic, sexual, and psychological flows and exchanges among parents, children, and their partners and spouses. “Xinjing” is here read in conversation with a wide array of other sources, first and foremost the middle and late Qing literary heritage that so greatly occupied and influenced Chang's own literary universe and pursuits, as well as the westernized literary milieu in which she lived and operated in 1940s Shanghai.","PeriodicalId":33692,"journal":{"name":"PRISM","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77998429","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-03-01DOI: 10.1215/25783491-8163849
Mingzhe Qiao
This article delves into Liu Zaifu's theoretical construction of subjectivity and his reflections on the dominant paradigm of revolution and enlightenment in twentieth-century China. Realizing the incompleteness and insufficiency of his contemplation on individual subjectivity, Liu shifted his scholarly interests to the composition of and dialogues between multiple subjectivities and examined the complex relationship between subjects and objects, self and others, as well as the individual's psychological relationship with the self. By reframing Liu's theories on subjectivity, this article argues that he seeks to further detach literature from politics by calling for various transcendental dimensions of Chinese literary works beyond the realistic one and by paying intense attention to the literary descriptions of people's sin of complicity and their inner struggle. Liu's evocation of heart and mind formulates a new concept of interiority via connecting the Chinese traditional concept of xin with the Western concept of inner subjectivity. In this way, Liu weaves a unique discourse of interiority into Chinese literary criticism, as a complement to and critique of the enclosed narrative vision of revolution and enlightenment in modern China.
{"title":"Rethinking “Subjectivity” in Literature","authors":"Mingzhe Qiao","doi":"10.1215/25783491-8163849","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1215/25783491-8163849","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article delves into Liu Zaifu's theoretical construction of subjectivity and his reflections on the dominant paradigm of revolution and enlightenment in twentieth-century China. Realizing the incompleteness and insufficiency of his contemplation on individual subjectivity, Liu shifted his scholarly interests to the composition of and dialogues between multiple subjectivities and examined the complex relationship between subjects and objects, self and others, as well as the individual's psychological relationship with the self. By reframing Liu's theories on subjectivity, this article argues that he seeks to further detach literature from politics by calling for various transcendental dimensions of Chinese literary works beyond the realistic one and by paying intense attention to the literary descriptions of people's sin of complicity and their inner struggle. Liu's evocation of heart and mind formulates a new concept of interiority via connecting the Chinese traditional concept of xin with the Western concept of inner subjectivity. In this way, Liu weaves a unique discourse of interiority into Chinese literary criticism, as a complement to and critique of the enclosed narrative vision of revolution and enlightenment in modern China.","PeriodicalId":33692,"journal":{"name":"PRISM","volume":"7 1 1","pages":"172-182"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75498766","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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