The lure of the modern : writing modernism in semicolonial China, 1917-1937 / Shu-mei Shih.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Shih, Shu-mei, 1961-

Series:

Berkeley series in interdisciplinary studies of China ; 1.

Berkeley series in interdisciplinary studies of China ; 1

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Chinese literature--20th century--History and criticism.

Chinese literature.

Modernism (Literature)--China.

Modernism (Literature).

China.

Physical Description:

xiii, 427 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, [2001]

Summary:

Shu-mei Shih's study is the first book in English to offer a comprehensive account of Chinese literary modernism from Republican China. In The Lure of the Modern, Shih argues for the contextualization of Chinese modernism in the semicolonial cultural and political formation of the time. Engaging critically with theories of modernism, postcoloniality, and global and local cultural studies, Shih analyzes pivotal issues -- such as psychoanalysis, decadence, Orientalism, Occidentalism, semicolonial subjectivity, cosmopolitanism, and urbanism -- that were mediated by Japanese as well as Western modernisms.

Contents:

Introduction: The Global and Local Terms of Chinese Modernism 1

Part 1 Desiring the Modern: May Fourth Occidentalism and Japanism

1 Time, Modernism, and Cultural Power: Local Constructions 49

2 Evolutionism and Experimentalism: Lu Xun and Tao Jingsun 73

3 Psychoanalysis and Cosmopolitanism: The Work of Guo Moruo 96

4 The Libidinal and the National: The Morality of Decadence in Yu Dafu, Teng Gu, and Others 110

5 Loving the Other: May Fourth Occidentalism in the Global Context 128

Part 2 Rethinking the Modern: The Beijing School

6 Modernity without Rupture: Proposals for a New Global Culture 151

7 Writing English with a Chinese Brush: The Work of Fei Ming 190

8 Gendered Negotiations with the Local: Lin Huiyin and Ling Shuhua 204

Part 3 Flaunting the Modern: Shanghai New Sensationism

9 Modernism and Urban Shanghai 231

10 Gender, Race, and Semicolonialism: Liu Na'ou's Urban Shanghai Landscape 276

11 Performing Semicolonial Subjectivity: The Work of Mu Shiying 302

12 Capitalism and Interiority: Shi Zhecun's Tales of the Erotic-Grotesque 339

Conclusion: Semicolonialism and Culture 371

Appendix Later Modernisms: The War Years and Beyond 379.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 387-411) and indexes.

ISBN:

0520220633

0520220641

OCLC:

44775063