Modernity with a Cold War Face Reimagining the Nation in Chinese Literature across the 1949 Divide

Wang, Xiaojue

ISBN 10: 0674726723 / ISBN 13: 9780674726727

Published by Harvard Univ Council on East Asian, 2013

About this Item

1st edition. 359 pages. 9.50x6.50x1.00 inches. In Stock.

Seller Inventory # __0674726723

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Modernity with a Cold War Face Reimagining the Nation in Chinese Literature across the 1949 Divide
• Publisher: Harvard Univ Council on East Asian
• Publication Date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0674726723
• ISBN 13: 9780674726727
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Brand New
• Weight: 0.67 kilograms

About this title

Synopsis

The year 1949 witnessed China divided into multiple political and cultural entities. How did this momentous shift affect Chinese literary topography? Modernity with a Cold War Face examines the competing, converging, and conflicting modes of envisioning a modern nation in mid-twentieth century Chinese literature. Bridging the 1949 divide in both literary historical periodization and political demarcation, Xiaojue Wang proposes a new framework to consider Chinese literature beyond national boundaries, as something arising out of the larger global geopolitical and cultural conflict of the Cold War.

Examining a body of heretofore understudied literary and cultural production in mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and overseas during a crucial period after World War II, Wang traces how Chinese writers collected artistic fragments, blended feminist and socialist agendas, constructed ambivalent stances toward colonial modernity and an imaginary homeland, translated foreign literature to shape a new Chinese subjectivity, and revisited the classics for a new time. Reflecting historical reality in fictional terms, their work forged a path toward multiple modernities as they created alternative ways of connection, communication, and articulation to uncover and undermine Cold War dichotomous antagonism.

About the Author

Xiaojue Wang is Assistant Professor of Chinese Literature and Culture at the University of Pennsylvania.