Corruption And Realism In Late Socialist China

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Corruption and Realism in Late Socialist China

Author : Jeffrey Kinkley
Publisher : Stanford University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780804768108
Total Pages : 312 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (681 download)

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Book Synopsis Corruption and Realism in Late Socialist China by : Jeffrey Kinkley

Download or read book Corruption and Realism in Late Socialist China written by Jeffrey Kinkley and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2006-10-26 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As China's centrally planned economy and welfare state have given way to a more loosely controlled version of "late socialism," public concern about economic reform's downside has found expression in epic novels about official corruption and its effects. While the media shied away from dealing with these issues, novelists stepped in to fill the void. "Anti-corruption fiction" exploded onto the marketplace and into public consciousness, spawning popular films and television series until a clampdown after 2002 that ended China's first substantial realist fiction since the 1989 Beijing massacre. With frankness and imagination seldom allowed journalists, novelists have depicted the death of China's rust-belt industries, the gap between rich and poor, "social unrest"—i.e., riots—and the questionable new practices of entrenched communist party rulers. Corruption and Realism examines this rebirth of the Chinese political novel and its media adaptations, explaining how the works reflect contemporary Chinese life and how they embody Chinese traditions of social criticism, literary realism, and contemplation of taboo subjects. This is the first book to investigate such novels and includes excerpts from personal interviews with China's three most famous anticorruption novelists.

Mainstream Culture Refocused

Author : Xueping Zhong
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
ISBN 13 : 0824882504
Total Pages : 233 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (248 download)

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Book Synopsis Mainstream Culture Refocused by : Xueping Zhong

Download or read book Mainstream Culture Refocused written by Xueping Zhong and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2019-01-31 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Serialized television drama (dianshiju), perhaps the most popular and influential cultural form in China over the past three decades, offers a wide and penetrating look at the tensions and contradictions of the post-revolutionary and pro-market period. Zhong Xueping’s timely new work draws attention to the multiple cultural and historical legacies that coexist and challenge each other within this dominant form of story telling. Although scholars tend to focus their attention on elite cultural trends and avant garde movements in literature and film, Zhong argues for recognizing the complexity of dianshiju’s melodramatic mode and its various subgenres, in effect "refocusing" mainstream Chinese culture. Mainstream Culture Refocused opens with an examination of television as a narrative motif in three contemporary Chinese art-house films. Zhong then turns her attention to dianshiju’s most important subgenres. "Emperor dramas" highlight the link between popular culture’s obsession with emperors and modern Chinese intellectuals’ preoccupation with issues of history and tradition and how they relate to modernity. In her exploration of the "anti-corruption" subgenre, Zhong considers three representative dramas, exploring their diverse plots and emphases. "Youth dramas’" rich array of representations reveal the numerous social, economic, cultural, and ideological issues surrounding the notion of youth and its changing meanings. The chapter on the "family-marriage" subgenre analyzes the ways in which women’s emotions are represented in relation to their desire for "happiness." Song lyrics from music composed for television dramas are considered as "popular poetics." Their sentiments range between nostalgia and uncertainty, mirroring the social contradictions of the reform era. The Epilogue returns to the relationship between intellectuals and the production of mainstream cultural meaning in the context of China’s post-revolutionary social, economic, and cultural transformation. Provocative and insightful, Mainstream Culture Refocused will appeal to scholars and students in studies of modern China generally and of contemporary Chinese media and popular culture specifically.

Staging Corruption

Author : Ruoyun Bai
Publisher : UBC Press
ISBN 13 : 0774826347
Total Pages : 293 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (748 download)

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Book Synopsis Staging Corruption by : Ruoyun Bai

Download or read book Staging Corruption written by Ruoyun Bai and published by UBC Press. This book was released on 2014-09-04 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In late 1995, the drama Heaven Above (Cangtian zaishang) debuted on Chinese TV. Featuring a villainous high-ranking government official, it was the first in a series of wildly popular corruption dramas that riveted the nation. In Staging Corruption, Ruoyun Bai looks at the rise, fall, and reincarnation of these dramas and the ways in which they express the collective dreams and nightmares of China in the market-reform era. She also considers how these dramas – as products of the interplay between television stations, production companies, media regulation, and political censorship – unveil complicated relationships between power, media, and society. Her book will be essential reading for those following China's ongoing struggles with the highly volatile issue of political and social nepotism.

Uneven Modernity

Author : Haomin Gong
Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
ISBN 13 : 0824860403
Total Pages : 201 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (248 download)

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Book Synopsis Uneven Modernity by : Haomin Gong

Download or read book Uneven Modernity written by Haomin Gong and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2011-12-31 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Postsocialist China is marked by paradoxes: economic boom, political conservatism, cultural complexity. Haomin Gong’s dynamic study of these paradoxes, or “unevenness,” provides a unique and seminal approach to contemporary China. Reading unevenness as a problem and an opportunity simultaneously, Gong investigates how this dialectical social situation shapes cultural production. He begins his investigation of “uneven modernity” in China by constructing a critical framework of unevenness among different theoretical schools and expounding on how dialectical thinking points to a metaphysical paradox in capitalism and modernity: the inevitable tension between a constant pursuit of infinite fullness and a break of fullness (unevenness) as the means of this pursuit. In the Chinese context, this paradox is created in the “uneven developmentalism” that most manifestly characterizes the postsocialist period. Gong goes on to investigate manifestations of the dialectics of unevenness in specific cultural events. Four case studies address respectively but not exclusively literature (the prose of Yu Qiuyu), popular fiction (Chi Li’s neorealist fiction), commercial cinema (the movies of Feng Xiaogang), and art-house cinema (Wang Xiaoshuai’s filmmaking). Representing different aspects of cultural production in postsocialist China, these writers and directors deal with the same social condition of uneven development, and their works clearly exhibit the problematics of this age. Uneven Modernity makes a significant contribution to the burgeoning field of China studies as well as the study of uneven development in general. It addresses some of the most popular, yet understudied, cultural phenomena in contemporary China. Specialists and students will find its insights admirable and its style accessible.

Chinese Independent Animation

Author : Wenhai Zhou
Publisher : Springer Nature
ISBN 13 : 3030406970
Total Pages : 230 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (34 download)

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Book Synopsis Chinese Independent Animation by : Wenhai Zhou

Download or read book Chinese Independent Animation written by Wenhai Zhou and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-04-23 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study of ‘independent’ animation opens up a quietly subversive and vibrant dimension of contemporary Chinese culture which, hitherto, has not received as much attention as dissident art or political activism. Scholarly interest in Chinese animation has increased over the last decade, with attention paid to the conventional media circle of production, distribution and consumption. The ‘independent’ sector has been largely ignored however, until now. By focusing on distinctive independent artists like Pisan and Lei Lei, and situating their work within the present day media ecology, the author examines the relationship between the genre and the sociocultural transformation of contemporary China. Animation, the author argues, has a special significance, as the nature of the animation text is itself multilayered and given to multiple interpretations and avenues of engagement. Through an examination of the affordances of this ‘independent’ media entity, the author explores how this multifaceted cultural form reveals ambiguities that parallel contradictions in art and society. In so doing, independent animation provides a convenient ‘mirror’ for examining how recent social upheavals have been negotiated, and how certain practitioners have found effective ways for discussing the post-Socialist reality within the current political configuration.

Questioning the Chinese Model

Author : Zhansui Yu
Publisher : University of Toronto Press
ISBN 13 : 1487544367
Total Pages : 341 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (875 download)

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Book Synopsis Questioning the Chinese Model by : Zhansui Yu

Download or read book Questioning the Chinese Model written by Zhansui Yu and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2023-02-27 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the early twenty-first century, the Chinese literary world saw an emergence of fictional works – dubbed as "oppositional political novels" – that took political articulation as their major purpose and questioned the fundamental principles and intrinsic logic of the Chinese model. Based on close readings of five representative oppositional Chinese political novels, Questioning the Chinese Model examines the sociopolitical connotations and epistemological values of these novels in the broad context of modern Chinese intellectual history and contemporary Chinese politics and society. Zhansui Yu provides a sketch of the social, political, and intellectual landscape of present-day China. He investigates the dialectic relationship between the arts and politics in the Chinese context, the mechanisms and dynamics of censorship in the age of the Internet and commercialization, and the ideological limitations of oppositional Chinese political novels. In the process of textual and social analysis, Yu extensively cites Western political philosophers, such as Hannah Arendt, Antonio Gramsci, Michel Foucault, and references well-regarded studies on Chinese literature, politics, society, and the Chinese intelligentsia. Examining oppositional Chinese political novels from multiple perspectives, Questioning the Chinese Model applies a broad range of knowledge beyond merely the literary field.

Pacific Automobilism

Author : Gijs Mom
Publisher : Berghahn Books
ISBN 13 : 1800735642
Total Pages : 1002 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (7 download)

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Book Synopsis Pacific Automobilism by : Gijs Mom

Download or read book Pacific Automobilism written by Gijs Mom and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2022-09-13 with total page 1002 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The beginning of the 21st century has seen important shifts in mobility cultures around the world, as the West’s media-driven car culture has contrasted with existing local mobilities, from rickshaws in India and minibuses in Africa to cycling in China. In this expansive volume, historian Gijs Mom explores how contemporary mobility has been impacted by social, political, and economic forces on a global scale, as in light of local mobility cultures, the car as an ‘adventure machine’ seems to lose cultural influence in favor of the car’s status character.

Vehicles

Author : David Lipset
Publisher : Berghahn Books
ISBN 13 : 178238376X
Total Pages : 224 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (823 download)

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Book Synopsis Vehicles by : David Lipset

Download or read book Vehicles written by David Lipset and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2014-08-01 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Metaphor, as an act of human fancy, combines ideas in improbable ways to sharpen meanings of life and experience. Theoretically, this arises from an association between a sign—for example, a cattle car—and its referent, the Holocaust. These “sign-vehicles” serve as modes of semiotic transportation through conceptual space. Likewise, on-the-ground vehicles can be rich metaphors for the moral imagination. Following on this insight, Vehicles presents a collection of ethnographic essays on the metaphoric significance of vehicles in different cultures. Analyses include canoes in Papua New Guinea, pedestrians and airplanes in North America, lowriders among Mexican-Americans, and cars in contemporary China, Japan, and Eastern Europe, as well as among African-Americans in the South. Vehicles not only “carry people around,” but also “carry” how they are understood in relation to the dynamics of culture, politics and history.

China's Quest for Sporting Mega-Events

Author : Marcus P. Chu
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 0429557876
Total Pages : 263 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (295 download)

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Book Synopsis China's Quest for Sporting Mega-Events by : Marcus P. Chu

Download or read book China's Quest for Sporting Mega-Events written by Marcus P. Chu and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-07-14 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book vividly elucidates the inseparable nature between politics and sport in China. The holding of sporting mega-events is viewed by the Chinese authorities as a prominent way to push forward the Reform and Opening up, arouse the patriotism among the public, and display national resurgence in the world. Chinese cities thus have keenly quested for the Olympics, the Asian Games and the World University Games since the 1980s. Theoretically, the President, the Premier and the central government should provide all-out support, so boosting the Chinese cities’ odds of success. The reality yet shows that their attitude towards the bids vary from case to case. Through reviewing the 20 bidding cases, this book aims to demystify the reasons behind. The findings provide an in-depth account of (1) how domestic and international political factors determine the state leaders’ blessing and silence as well as the central government’s backing, indifference and opposition, and (2) how the bids for the sporting mega-events are used to serve the broader political goals of the Chinese authorities at home and abroad. Additionally, they shed light on the political strategies to boost the Chinese cities’ chance of success, and the political reasons for their win, loss and discontinuation, in the bidding contests. The book will be a valuable resource for researches interested in the domestic politics and international relations of China.

The Oxford Handbook of Chinese Cinemas

Author : Carlos Rojas
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199988447
Total Pages : 730 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (999 download)

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Book Synopsis The Oxford Handbook of Chinese Cinemas by : Carlos Rojas

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Chinese Cinemas written by Carlos Rojas and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-03-13 with total page 730 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does it mean for a cinematic work to be "Chinese"? Does it refer specifically to a work's subject, or does it also reflect considerations of language, ethnicity, nationality, ideology, or political orientation? Such questions make any single approach to a vast field like "Chinese cinema" difficult at best. Accordingly, The Oxford Handbook of Chinese Cinemas situates the term more broadly among various different phases, genres, and distinct national configurations, while taking care to address the consequences of grouping together so many disparate histories under a single banner. Offering both a platform for cross-disciplinary dialogue and a mapping of Chinese cinema as an expanded field, this Handbook presents thirty-three essays by leading researchers and scholars intent on yielding new insights and new analyses using three different methodologies. Chapters in Part I investigate the historical periodizations of the field through changing notions of national and political identity -- all the way from the industry's beginnings in the 1920s up to its current forms in contemporary Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the global diaspora. Chapters in Part II feature studies centered on the field's taxonomical formalities, including such topics as the role of the Chinese opera in technological innovation, the political logic of the "Maoist film," and the psychoanalytic formula of the kung fu action film. Finally, in Part III, focus is given to the structural elements that comprise a work's production, distribution, and reception to reveal the broader cinematic apparatuses within which these works are positioned. Taken together, the multipronged approach supports a wider platform beyond the geopolitical and linguistic limitations in existing scholarship. Expertly edited to illustrate a representative set of up to date topics and approaches, The Oxford Handbook of Chinese Cinemas provides a vital addition to a burgeoning field still in its formative stages.

The Columbia Companion to Modern Chinese Literature

Author : Kirk A. Denton
Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 0231541147
Total Pages : 818 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (315 download)

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Book Synopsis The Columbia Companion to Modern Chinese Literature by : Kirk A. Denton

Download or read book The Columbia Companion to Modern Chinese Literature written by Kirk A. Denton and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2016-04-05 with total page 818 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Columbia Companion to Modern Chinese Literature features more than fifty short essays on specific writers and literary trends from the Qing period (1895–1911) to the present. The volume opens with thematic essays on the politics and ethics of writing literary history, the formation of the canon, the relationship between language and form, the role of literary institutions and communities, the effects of censorship, the representation of the Chinese diaspora, the rise and meaning of Sinophone literature, and the role of different media in the development of literature. Subsequent essays focus on authors, their works, and the schools with which they were aligned, featuring key names, titles, and terms in English and in Chinese characters. Woven throughout are pieces on late Qing fiction, popular entertainment fiction, martial arts fiction, experimental theater, post-Mao avant-garde poetry, post–martial law fiction from Taiwan, contemporary genre fiction from China, and recent Internet literature. The volume includes essays on such authors as Liang Qichao, Lu Xun, Shen Congwen, Eileen Chang, Jin Yong, Mo Yan, Wang Anyi, Gao Xingjian, and Yan Lianke. Both a teaching tool and a go-to research companion, this volume is a one-of-a-kind resource for mastering modern literature in the Chinese-speaking world.

Contemporary Chinese Fiction Writers

Author : Laifong Leung
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317516192
Total Pages : 411 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (175 download)

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Book Synopsis Contemporary Chinese Fiction Writers by : Laifong Leung

Download or read book Contemporary Chinese Fiction Writers written by Laifong Leung and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-07-28 with total page 411 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the years since the death of Mao Zedong, interest in Chinese writers and Chinese literature has risen significantly in the West. In 2000, Gao Xingjian became the first Chinese writer to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature followed by Mo Yan in 2012, and writers such as Ha Jin and Da Sijie have also become well known in the West. Despite this progress, the vast majority of Chinese writers remain largely unknown outside of China. This book introduces the lives and works of eighty contemporary Chinese writers, and focuses on writers from the "Rightist" generation (Bai Hua, Gao Xiaosheng, Liu Shaotang), writers of the Red Guard generation (Li Rui, Wang Anyi), Post-Cultural Revolution Writers, as well as others. Unlike earlier works, it provides detailed, often first-hand, biographical information on this wide range of writers, including their career trajectories, major themes and artistic characteristics. In addition to this, each entry includes a critical presentation and evaluation of the writer’s major works, a selected bibliography of publications that includes works in Chinese, works translated into English, and critical articles and books available in English. Offering a valuable contribution to the field of contemporary Chinese literature by making detailed information about Chinese writers more accessible, this book will be of interest to students and scholars Chinese Literature, Contemporary Literature and Chinese Studies.

A Companion to Modern Chinese Literature

Author : Yingjin Zhang
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 1118451619
Total Pages : 592 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (184 download)

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Book Synopsis A Companion to Modern Chinese Literature by : Yingjin Zhang

Download or read book A Companion to Modern Chinese Literature written by Yingjin Zhang and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2015-08-07 with total page 592 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This wide-ranging Companion provides a vital overview of modern Chinese literature in different geopolitical areas, from the 1840s to now. It reviews major accomplishments of Chinese literary scholarship published in Chinese and English and brings attention to previously neglected, important areas. Offers the most thorough and concise coverage of modern Chinese literature to date, drawing attention to previously neglected areas such as late Qing, Sinophone, and ethnic minority literature Several chapters explore literature in relation to Sinophone geopolitics, regional culture, urban culture, visual culture, print media, and new media The introduction and two chapters furnish overviews of the institutional development of modern Chinese literature in Chinese and English scholarship since the mid-twentieth century Contributions from leading literary scholars in mainland China and Hong Kong add their voices to international scholarship

Screening Post-1989 China

Author : W. Ho
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 1137514701
Total Pages : 189 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (375 download)

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Book Synopsis Screening Post-1989 China by : W. Ho

Download or read book Screening Post-1989 China written by W. Ho and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-05-20 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This unique book investigates the tug-of-war between the free market economy and authoritative state regulation in Chinese culture after 1989. Contextualizing close textual readings of cinematic and television texts, both officially sanctioned and independently made, Wing Shan Ho illuminates the complex process in which cultural producers and consumers negotiate with both the state and the market in articulating new forms of subjectivity. Ho examines the types of Chinese subjects that the state applauds and aggrandizes in contrast to those that it condemns and attempts to eliminate. Her focus on the socialist spirit exposes inherent contradictions in the current Chinese project of nation-building. This comparative study shines a harsh light on these cultural products and on much more: the confluence between commerce and politics and popular culture, the interaction between state and individuals in popular culture, and the complexity of governmentality in an era of globalization.

Aspirational Chinese in Competitive Social Repositionings

Author : Jia Gao
Publisher : Anthem Press
ISBN 13 : 183998290X
Total Pages : 196 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (399 download)

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Book Synopsis Aspirational Chinese in Competitive Social Repositionings by : Jia Gao

Download or read book Aspirational Chinese in Competitive Social Repositionings written by Jia Gao and published by Anthem Press. This book was released on 2023-08-08 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the past four or so decades, a significant amount of research efforts has been made to examine the rapid and constant social changes in China. However, most of the literature has focused on either macro- or micro-level issues, and what has not been adequately analysed is how the majority of ordinary people has reacted to and influenced the changes. This inadequacy has affected our understanding of Chinese society, its dynamics and the changing trends. Drawing upon a new perspective of competitive social repositioning, and the evidence recorded in numerous recent publications and interview data, this book seeks to re-examine the ever-changing, but under-researched, societal dynamics driving social transformations in China from 1964, when the communist heir narrative was rebranded and utilised, to 2000, when Jiang Zemin formulated the Three-Represents theory to modify the ideological political thinking of China’s ruling elites. This analysis focuses on how a high proportion of aspirational citizens have kept repositioning themselves in China’s changing distributions of social resources and social structure, how their attitudes and behaviours have been shaped over time, what characteristics of their choices are at different stages, and how their preferences have resulted in the zig-zag patterns of China’s recent social change.

The Palgrave Handbook of Asian Cinema

Author : Aaron Han Joon Magnan-Park
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 1349958220
Total Pages : 742 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (499 download)

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Book Synopsis The Palgrave Handbook of Asian Cinema by : Aaron Han Joon Magnan-Park

Download or read book The Palgrave Handbook of Asian Cinema written by Aaron Han Joon Magnan-Park and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-11-04 with total page 742 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection offers new approaches to theorizing Asian film in relation to the history, culture, geopolitics and economics of the continent. Bringing together original essays written by established and emerging scholars, this anthology transcends the limitations of national borders to do justice to the diverse ways in which the cinema shapes Asia geographically and imaginatively in the world today. From the revival of the Silk Road as the “belt and road” of a rising China to historical ruminations on the legacy of colonialism across the continent, the authors argue that the category of “Asian cinema” from Turkey to the edges of the Pacific continues to play a vital role in cutting-edge film research. This handbook will serve as an essential guide for committed scholars, students, and all those interested in the past, present, and possible future of Asian cinema in the 21st century.

Shanghai Gone

Author : Qin Shao
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1442211334
Total Pages : 328 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (422 download)

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Book Synopsis Shanghai Gone by : Qin Shao

Download or read book Shanghai Gone written by Qin Shao and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2023-06-14 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “One of the best accounts of the reality of gentrification and urban development in China . . . grounded with solid historical, ethnographic and legal evidence” (Urban Studies). In recent decades, the centuries-old city of Shanghai has been demolished and rebuilt into a gleaming megacity. With its world famous skyscrapers, it now ranks with New York and London as a hub of global finance. But that transformation has come at a grave human cost. In Shanghai Gone, Qin Shao applies the concept of domicide—the eradication of a home against the will of its dwellers—to the sweeping destruction of neighborhoods, families, and life patterns that made way for the new Shanghai. Shao gives voice to the holdouts and protesters who resisted domicide and demanded justice. She follows, among others, a reticent kindergarten teacher turned diehard petitioner; a descendant of gangsters and squatters who has become an amateur lawyer for evictees; and a Chinese Muslim who has struggled to recover his ancestral home in Xintiandi, an infamous site of gentrification dominated by a well-connected Hong Kong real estate tycoon. Highlighting the wrenching changes spawned by China’s reform era, Shao vividly portrays the corrupt and rapacious pursuit of growth and profit, the personal wreckage it has left behind, and the enduring human spirit it has unleashed.