Contemporary Chinese Cinema and Visual Culture: Envisioning the Nation

by Sheldon Lu

Overview

Honourable Mention, Best Monograph Award, BAFTSS Publication Awards 2022

Sheldon Lu's wide-ranging new book investigates how filmmakers and visual artists from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan have envisioned China as it transitions from a socialist to a globalized capitalist state. It examines how the modern nation has been refashioned and re-imagined in order to keep pace with globalization and transnationalism.

At the heart of Lu's analysis is a double movement in the relationship between nation and transnationalism in the Chinese post-socialist state. He considers the complexity of how the Chinese economy is integrated in the global capitalist system while also remaining a repressive body politic with mechanisms of control and surveillance. He explores the interrelations of the local, the national, the subnational, and the global as China repositions itself in the world.

Lu considers examples from feature and documentary film, mainstream and marginal cinema, and a variety of visual arts: photography, painting, digital video, architecture, and installation. His close case studies include representations of class, masculinity and sexuality in contemporary Taiwanese and Chinese cinema; the figure of the sex worker as a symbol of modernity and mobility; and artists' representations of Beijing at the time of the 2008 Olympics.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781350234192
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	07/15/2021
Series:	Global East Asian Screen Cultures
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Sheldon Lu is Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature at UC Davis, USA. He is the author and editor of more than a dozen books in English and Chinese. These include Chinese Modernity and Global Biopolitics: Studies in Literature and Visual Culture (2007), China, Transnational Visuality, Global Postmodernity (2001), and From Historicity to Fictionality: The Chinese Poetics of Narrative (1994). Chinese-Language Film: Historiography, Poetics, Politics (co-edited with Emilie Y. Y. Yeh, 2005) was named a Choice Outstanding Academic Title.
Sheldon Lu is Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature at UC Davis, USA. He has served as the Chair of the Department of Comparative Literature, Director of the Graduate Program in Comparative Literature, and Founding Co-Director of the Film Studies Program at UC Davis. He is the author and editor of more than a dozen books in English and Chinese. These include Chinese Modernity and Global Biopolitics: Studies in Literature and Visual Culture (2007), China, Transnational Visuality, Global Postmodernity (2001), and From Historicity to Fictionality: The Chinese Poetics of Narrative (1994).

Table of Contents

Introduction: Refashioning the Nation in Transnational Cinema and Art

Part 1: Nationhood, Gender, Sexuality, Masculinity in Feature Film

1.Projecting the Chinese Nation on Domestic and Global Screens

2. Space, Mobility, Modernity: The Female Prostitute in Chinese-language Film

3. Re-orientations of Hong Kong Cinema and Transformations of Masculinity

4. Masculinity in Crisis: Male Characters in Jia Zhangke's Films

Part 2. Multimedia Engagements with the Local, National, and Global

5. Peripheral, Underground, and Independent Cinema

6. Performing and Romancing the Other in Film, Television Drama, and Ballet

7. Reshaping Beijing's Space: Architecture, Art, Photography, Film

8. Artistic and Multimedia Interventions

Conclusion: Globalization at Bay

Filmography

Bibliography

Index

Editorial Reviews

Sheldon Lu has contributed significantly to the study of Chinese language cinema, literature, and visual arts over the years, and initiated important concepts such as transnational cinema which has become an indispensable framework for scholars and students to look at Chinese cinema, world cinemas, and visual culture. His latest book covers a broad array of visual and artistic medium: film, painting, graffiti, photography, architecture, installation, performance and poetry. It is illustrated with photographs of artworks and stills from films which contribute to the understanding of the text. This book brings the subject matter alive and up to date, revealing the diversity and vibrancy of Chinese aesthetic culture for readers.” —Stephen Teo, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

“A timely intervention in academic debates and visual productions that challenges the reader to rethink familiar concepts (e.g., nation, masculinity, environment) and reconfigure relationships between cinema and other arts. A must-read for those interested in the expert judgment of a leading voice in the field.” —Yingjin Zhang, University of California, San Diego, USA

“In a world ravaged by pandemics, ecological degradation, sexual violence, racial assaults, territorial disputes, and trade wars, Sheldon Lu's book makes a critical intervention into ongoing debates about China by focusing on the notion of the “nation” in cinema and related visual arts. Absolutely essential reading.” —Gina Marchetti, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

“As the originator of the transnational concept, Sheldon Lu is the most able scholar to probe the vagaries of national cinema in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. We tend to think of globalisation and nationalism as antithetical forces, but Lu presents case after case of how nationalism is aided and abetted by globalisation and transnationalism. China's film and visual culture carry the aims of patriotic ideologues, but also present visions of individual struggles against repression, inequality and patriarchy. Contemporary Chinese Cinema and Visual Culture is an incisive, expansive intervention into China's global figurations.” —Emilie Yueh-yu Yeh, Lingnan University, Hong Kong

From the Publisher