For the past twenty years, director Tian Gebing and his Beijing-based independent artist collective, Paper Tiger Theater Studio, have pushed the boundaries of performance art and theater by probing, critiquing, and reconfiguring notions of the avant-garde. This article analyzes their recent production from 2017, 500 Meters: Kafka, the Great Wall, or Images from the Unreal World and Daily Heroism, highlighting the latent political and social ideologies of the Great Wall via parody and paradox within a decidedly postdramatic context in order to deconstruct Chinese political and social borders. I argue that 500 Meters moves the meaning of the immense border-demarcation line of the Great Wall from a discourse on political power to one of transcultural bonding. Consequently, the hybridity made possible through parody and paradox advances numerous possible alternative understandings of the Great Wall as variously a space of intercultural dialogue, a place of emotional connection with the other, and a surprisingly harmonious Babel where dominant dichotomies are subverted and even eliminated from the traditional, often coercive, and highly politicized understanding of borders.
{"title":"Redefining Borders in Contemporary Chinese Theater: Paper Tiger Theater Studio Performing Kafka’s “The Great Wall”","authors":"Andreea Chirita","doi":"10.3366/mclc.2022.0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/mclc.2022.0005","url":null,"abstract":"For the past twenty years, director Tian Gebing and his Beijing-based independent artist collective, Paper Tiger Theater Studio, have pushed the boundaries of performance art and theater by probing, critiquing, and reconfiguring notions of the avant-garde. This article analyzes their recent production from 2017, 500 Meters: Kafka, the Great Wall, or Images from the Unreal World and Daily Heroism, highlighting the latent political and social ideologies of the Great Wall via parody and paradox within a decidedly postdramatic context in order to deconstruct Chinese political and social borders. I argue that 500 Meters moves the meaning of the immense border-demarcation line of the Great Wall from a discourse on political power to one of transcultural bonding. Consequently, the hybridity made possible through parody and paradox advances numerous possible alternative understandings of the Great Wall as variously a space of intercultural dialogue, a place of emotional connection with the other, and a surprisingly harmonious Babel where dominant dichotomies are subverted and even eliminated from the traditional, often coercive, and highly politicized understanding of borders.","PeriodicalId":43027,"journal":{"name":"Modern Chinese Literature and Culture","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41853539","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In a departure from his usual work, Mo Yan’s (1955–) historical play Our Jing Ke ( Women de Jing Ke) reinterprets the story of the assassin Jing Ke (d. 227 BCE). The play adopts most of its characters and plot points from previous accounts, particularly The Grand Scribe’s Records ( Shiji), and the basic structure follows the cultural memory of Jing Ke. However, there are major innovations in Mo Yan’s interpretation of the story, including the title of the play; the investigation of the theme of fame; the creation of a new major character, Lady Yan; the use of colloquial, humorous, and information-dense language; and the adoption of modernist literary devices to reinterpret the motivation behind the assassination. Through these innovations, Mo Yan contests the traditional reception of the lore of Jing Ke and adds new elements to its cultural memory. Simultaneously, Mo Yan relates this popular story to contemporary Chinese social reality and concerns. To better understand both the retrospective revisions and prospective efforts to reach contemporary audiences, this article places Our Jing Ke in the context of the long reception and cultural memory of Jing Ke as well as in the context of Mo Yan’s life experience and other writings.
{"title":"Reconfiguring History through Literature: Cultural Memory and Mo Yan’s Historical Play Our Jing Ke","authors":"Y. Zhang","doi":"10.3366/mclc.2022.0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/mclc.2022.0006","url":null,"abstract":"In a departure from his usual work, Mo Yan’s (1955–) historical play Our Jing Ke ( Women de Jing Ke) reinterprets the story of the assassin Jing Ke (d. 227 BCE). The play adopts most of its characters and plot points from previous accounts, particularly The Grand Scribe’s Records ( Shiji), and the basic structure follows the cultural memory of Jing Ke. However, there are major innovations in Mo Yan’s interpretation of the story, including the title of the play; the investigation of the theme of fame; the creation of a new major character, Lady Yan; the use of colloquial, humorous, and information-dense language; and the adoption of modernist literary devices to reinterpret the motivation behind the assassination. Through these innovations, Mo Yan contests the traditional reception of the lore of Jing Ke and adds new elements to its cultural memory. Simultaneously, Mo Yan relates this popular story to contemporary Chinese social reality and concerns. To better understand both the retrospective revisions and prospective efforts to reach contemporary audiences, this article places Our Jing Ke in the context of the long reception and cultural memory of Jing Ke as well as in the context of Mo Yan’s life experience and other writings.","PeriodicalId":43027,"journal":{"name":"Modern Chinese Literature and Culture","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43373802","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Note from the Editors","authors":"N. Gentz, Christopher Rosenmeier","doi":"10.3366/mclc.2022.0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/mclc.2022.0002","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43027,"journal":{"name":"Modern Chinese Literature and Culture","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43764310","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In the early twenty-first century, the southwest frontier, especially the Sino-Tibetan borderlands, has been imagined as a particular utopian space, or “Shangri-La,” in China’s popular culture, but there are also literary works and films that debunk this conception. This paper is a study of these different discourses. I argue that the utopian and anti-utopian representations of China’s Southwest in these works are socially and intellectually significant. The myth of Shangri-La promises a fantasized utopian solution to social problems and a miraculous cure for personal afflictions. In contrast, Ge Fei’s End of Spring in Jiangnan ( Chun jin Jiangnan, 2011) and Ning Ken’s Sky·Tibet ( Tian·Zang, 2010) debunk the myth of Shangri-La as a utopian solution and cure. In this way, these two novels retain their critical stance toward China’s history and reality. Meanwhile, some anti-Shangri-La works can be more ambivalent: Zhu Wen’s South of the Clouds ( Yun de nanfang, 2004) and Han Han’s The Continent ( Houhui wuqi, 2014) appear to challenge the utopian construction to form their social criticism in the beginning, only to compromise this criticism in the end as they affirm the existence of utopia either in the rural Southwest or in urban China. All these utopian and anti-utopian elements make the southwest frontier a site of contestation and contradiction.
{"title":"The Myth of Shangri-La and Its Counter-discourses: (Anti-)Utopian Representations of China’s Southwest Frontier in the Twenty-First Century","authors":"Jin Hao","doi":"10.3366/mclc.2022.0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/mclc.2022.0009","url":null,"abstract":"In the early twenty-first century, the southwest frontier, especially the Sino-Tibetan borderlands, has been imagined as a particular utopian space, or “Shangri-La,” in China’s popular culture, but there are also literary works and films that debunk this conception. This paper is a study of these different discourses. I argue that the utopian and anti-utopian representations of China’s Southwest in these works are socially and intellectually significant. The myth of Shangri-La promises a fantasized utopian solution to social problems and a miraculous cure for personal afflictions. In contrast, Ge Fei’s End of Spring in Jiangnan ( Chun jin Jiangnan, 2011) and Ning Ken’s Sky·Tibet ( Tian·Zang, 2010) debunk the myth of Shangri-La as a utopian solution and cure. In this way, these two novels retain their critical stance toward China’s history and reality. Meanwhile, some anti-Shangri-La works can be more ambivalent: Zhu Wen’s South of the Clouds ( Yun de nanfang, 2004) and Han Han’s The Continent ( Houhui wuqi, 2014) appear to challenge the utopian construction to form their social criticism in the beginning, only to compromise this criticism in the end as they affirm the existence of utopia either in the rural Southwest or in urban China. All these utopian and anti-utopian elements make the southwest frontier a site of contestation and contradiction.","PeriodicalId":43027,"journal":{"name":"Modern Chinese Literature and Culture","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41653459","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article explores the transnational history of the science behind the mass literacy movement in China in the 1920s and 1930s. In particular, it investigates the reformers’ attempts to reduce the number of Chinese characters to a “basic” set of around one thousand in an effort to promote mass literacy. In contrast to earlier literature that examined the history of mass literacy within the context of nation-building and citizenship, this article approaches the issue as a product of communication engineering and information management. It demonstrates that the effort to reduce the number of characters was deeply tied to the birth of behavioral psychology and statistical sciences in China as well as Euro-American theories of language and communication. Many of the leading Chinese figures in mass literacy campaigns were well informed by the methods of American behavioral sciences, which they employed to reduce the number of Chinese characters and optimize the learning process. This effort to invent a basic Chinese, however, gave birth to a critical question: which characters, after all, were “essential” for communication? The Chinese reformers’ search for information efficiency quickly turned into an ideological inquiry into the politics of language and writing in a modernizing China.
{"title":"Basic Chinese: Cognitive Management, Communication Engineering, and Mass Literacy in China","authors":"Uluğ Kuzuoğlu","doi":"10.3366/mclc.2022.0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/mclc.2022.0003","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores the transnational history of the science behind the mass literacy movement in China in the 1920s and 1930s. In particular, it investigates the reformers’ attempts to reduce the number of Chinese characters to a “basic” set of around one thousand in an effort to promote mass literacy. In contrast to earlier literature that examined the history of mass literacy within the context of nation-building and citizenship, this article approaches the issue as a product of communication engineering and information management. It demonstrates that the effort to reduce the number of characters was deeply tied to the birth of behavioral psychology and statistical sciences in China as well as Euro-American theories of language and communication. Many of the leading Chinese figures in mass literacy campaigns were well informed by the methods of American behavioral sciences, which they employed to reduce the number of Chinese characters and optimize the learning process. This effort to invent a basic Chinese, however, gave birth to a critical question: which characters, after all, were “essential” for communication? The Chinese reformers’ search for information efficiency quickly turned into an ideological inquiry into the politics of language and writing in a modernizing China.","PeriodicalId":43027,"journal":{"name":"Modern Chinese Literature and Culture","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48494726","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Abstract Painting: The Formation of New Aesthetics in Post-Mao China","authors":"Yiqing Li","doi":"10.3366/mclc.2021.0015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/mclc.2021.0015","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43027,"journal":{"name":"Modern Chinese Literature and Culture","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43526037","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Feeling of Ling (the Numinous): Human-Animal Relations in Three Sinophone Short Stories","authors":"Jannis Jizhou Chen","doi":"10.3366/mclc.2021.0018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/mclc.2021.0018","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43027,"journal":{"name":"Modern Chinese Literature and Culture","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43774993","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Can a Chinese Subaltern Speak? A Study on Writings About Female Aging in China","authors":"Yuanhang Liu, M. Seats","doi":"10.3366/mclc.2021.0016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/mclc.2021.0016","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43027,"journal":{"name":"Modern Chinese Literature and Culture","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46523967","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
What does the ludic have to do with Xi Xi’s writings and creative concerns? Since Jacques Ehrmann’s Game, Play, Literature (1968) and Warren Motte’s Playtexts (1995), critical discussions about play have expanded significantly beyond video game studies and child pedagogy to literature and aesthetics. Critics such as Espen Aarseth and Astrid Ensslin (2014) focus on how the reader becomes a player and argue for the importance of “ergodicity”, or “non-trivial” (Aarseth 1997: 1) effort that ludic literature demands from readers; Katherine Hayles (2007) discusses how intermediation in digital literature creates ludic effects in the dynamic switching between different interfaces and media; whereas Mihai Spariosu (1997: xv) identifies playful literary discourse as a “liminal mode of being”. These studies highlight text-reader interactivity and play as a destabilizing and self-justifying movement at work in literature and aesthetic experience. Nevertheless, they have – as well as most discussions of literary ludicity – focused on literature produced in Europe and North America. This essay thus aims to contribute to existing criticism by exploring how Xi Xi’s works offer us new articulations of play.
{"title":"Xi Xi's Playful Image-Texts: Ekphrasis, Parergon, and the Concept of Toy","authors":"X. Li","doi":"10.3366/mclc.2021.0017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/mclc.2021.0017","url":null,"abstract":"What does the ludic have to do with Xi Xi’s writings and creative concerns? Since Jacques Ehrmann’s Game, Play, Literature (1968) and Warren Motte’s Playtexts (1995), critical discussions about play have expanded significantly beyond video game studies and child pedagogy to literature and aesthetics. Critics such as Espen Aarseth and Astrid Ensslin (2014) focus on how the reader becomes a player and argue for the importance of “ergodicity”, or “non-trivial” (Aarseth 1997: 1) effort that ludic literature demands from readers; Katherine Hayles (2007) discusses how intermediation in digital literature creates ludic effects in the dynamic switching between different interfaces and media; whereas Mihai Spariosu (1997: xv) identifies playful literary discourse as a “liminal mode of being”. These studies highlight text-reader interactivity and play as a destabilizing and self-justifying movement at work in literature and aesthetic experience. Nevertheless, they have – as well as most discussions of literary ludicity – focused on literature produced in Europe and North America. This essay thus aims to contribute to existing criticism by exploring how Xi Xi’s works offer us new articulations of play.","PeriodicalId":43027,"journal":{"name":"Modern Chinese Literature and Culture","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49306289","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Lure of Diaspora: Diaspora Discourse, Accented Style, and Sinophone Malaysian Culture","authors":"W. Hee","doi":"10.3366/mclc.2021.0019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/mclc.2021.0019","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43027,"journal":{"name":"Modern Chinese Literature and Culture","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49549064","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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