History and memory in the marketplace : Cultural Representations of Mid-20th-century China / Qian Gao.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gao, Qian, 1972- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Revolutions.

Psychological aspects.

Collective memory.

Mass media and culture.

History.

China--History--Cultural Revolution, 1966-1976--Influence.

China.

China--Civilization--1976-2002.

Civilization.

China--Civilization--2002-.

Mass media and culture--China.

Motion pictures--Social aspects--China.

Motion pictures.

Motion pictures--Social aspects.

Culture in motion pictures.

Collective memory--China.

Revolutions--China--Psychological aspects.

Influence (Literary, artistic, etc.).

Revolutions--Psychological aspects.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

vi, 126 pages ; 23 cm

Other Title:

Cultural Representations of Mid-20th-century China

Place of Publication:

New York : Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., [2022]

Summary:

"This book captures and examines some of the main modes of "romanticized" memories about the Chinese Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution that have appeared since the late 1980s and are drastically different from previous representations that focused on trauma. Drawing on some of the major literary, filmic and digital presentations, as well as examples from the cultural marketplace, this book devotes its attention to the memories that are eroticized, nostalgic, digitized and commodified. Situating these new mnemonic presentations against the backdrop of a persistently cautious political climate in China that has never favored open expressions about the Cultural Revolutionary past, and also against a global climate of prevailing (capitalist) modernity and nostalgic sentiments, this book examines the meanings, values and problems lying in these new mnemonic rewritings of the Cultural Revolution experience, as well as analyses some of the intricate conflicts and connections between these memories and the global influences. In its study, this book uncovers not only a strong resistance to the official suppression of critical articulations of the Cultural Revolution history, but also the ways in which such resistance is effected through Chinese intellectuals' inventive use of the market and the trends of commodification. By giving deserved credits to commodification for facilitating Chinese intellectuals in establishing channels of conversations and possibly a discourse on China's recent history and the politics of memory, this book hopes to provide some insights into history's path, especially in light of Chinese intellectuals' heated debate on the nature of the capitalist economy in China"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: ch. I Introduction

ch. II Against the Winds: Some Recent Incidents and the Study of the Cultural Revolution

Between Forgetting and Not Forgetting

The New Shanghai History Textbook

Cultural Revolution Studies

ch. III In the Mood for Sex: Cultural Revolution Eroticized

Intellectualness

The Dialectics between Sexuality and Politics

Zhang Xianliang's Half of Man Is Woman

Carnival Time: Sexual Freedom vs. Spiritual Loss

Mang Ke's Wild Things

Repression as Incitement: Wang Xiaobo's Golden Times and Love in the Revolutionary Age

ch. IV Love at Last Sight: Resistance in a Nostalgic Key

Nostalgia

Hidden In the Heat of the Sun

Rebels of Mao

In the Field and on the Market

ch. V Landing on New Grounds: Cultural Revolution-Themed

Restaurant and the Cultural Revolution in Cyberspace

The Cultural Revolution Museum

Between Cattle and Chickens

Cultural Revolution Restaurants

Between Punishment and Spectacle

Between Fen (Tomb) and Men (Door)

Between Place and Space

Volunteer Worker and the "Organic Intellectual"

ch. VI Conclusion.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

Other Format:

Online version: Gao, Qian, 1972- History and memory in the marketplace.

ISBN:

9781433185281

1433185288

OCLC:

1266197732

Publisher Number:

99989876781