During the Mao era, China's museums served an explicit and uniform propaganda function, underlining official Party history, eulogizing revolutionary heroes, and contributing to nation building and ...socialist construction. With the implementation of the post-Mao modernization program in the late 1970s and 1980s and the advent of globalization and market reforms in the 1990s, China underwent a radical social and economic transformation that has led to a vastly more heterogeneous culture and polity. Yet China is dominated by a single Leninist party that continues to rely heavily on its revolutionary heritage to generate political legitimacy. With its messages of collectivism, self-sacrifice, and class struggle, that heritage is increasingly at odds with Chinese society and with the state's own neoliberal ideology of rapid-paced development, glorification of the market, and entrepreneurship. In this ambiguous political environment, museums and their curators must negotiate between revolutionary ideology and new kinds of historical narratives that reflect and highlight a neoliberal present.InExhibiting the Past, Kirk Denton analyzes types of museums and exhibitionary spaces, from revolutionary history museums, military museums, and memorials to martyrs to museums dedicated to literature, ethnic minorities, and local history. He discusses red tourism-a state sponsored program developed in 2003 as a new form of patriotic education designed to make revolutionary history come alive-and urban planning exhibition halls, which project utopian visions of China's future that are rooted in new conceptions of the past. Denton's method is narratological in the sense that he analyzes the stories museums tell about the past and the political and ideological implications of those stories. Focusing on "official" exhibitionary culture rather than alternative or counter memory, Denton reinserts the state back into the discussion of postsocialist culture because of its centrality to that culture and to show that state discourse in China is neither monolithic nor unchanging. The book considers the variety of ways state museums are responding to the dramatic social, technological, and cultural changes China has experienced over the past three decades.
The Landscape of Historical Memory explores the place of museums and memorial culture in the contestation over historical memory in post–martial law Taiwan. The book is particularly oriented toward ...the role of politics—especially political parties—in the establishment, administration, architectural design, and historical narratives of museums. It is framed around the wrangling between the “blue camp" (the Nationalist Party, or KMT, and its supporters) and the “green camp" (Democratic Progressive Party, or DPP, and its supporters) over what facets of the past should be remembered and how they should be displayed in museums. Organized into chapters focused on particular types of museums and memorial spaces (such as archaeology museums, history museums, martyrs’ shrines, war museums, memorial halls, literature museums, ethnology museums, and ecomuseums), the book presents a broad overview of the state of museums in Taiwan in the past three decades. The case of Taiwan museums tells us much about Cold War politics and its legacy in East Asia; the role of culture, history, and memory in shaping identities in the “postcolonial" landscape of Taiwan; the politics of historical memory in an emergent democracy, especially in counterpoint to the politics of museums in the People’s Republic of China, which continues to be an authoritarian single party state; and the place of museums in a neoliberal economic climate.
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.
Lu Xun (1881–1936) is widely considered the greatest writer of twentieth-century China. Although primarily known for his two slim volumes of short fiction, he was a prolific, inventive essayist. ...These 62 essays—20 translated for the first time—showcase his versatility as a master of prose forms and his brilliance as a cultural critic.
this article presents an overview of post-mao museum representations of modern chinese history. the focus is on changing exhibitionary practices and historical narratives in prc history museums in ...the period of market reforms and globalization. it shows how new museum architecture, the place of museum buildings in the cityscape and new exhibitionary technologies (such as multimedia displays, dioramas, miniatures) are tied to new narratives of history that serve the interests of the ideology of market reform. conventional socialist narratives of martyrdom and revolutionary liberation have not disappeared by any means, but they are being reshaped to downplay class issues and to legitimize commercial interests, a work ethic ideology and nationalism.
Lu Xun (1881–1936) is widely considered the greatest writer of twentieth- century China. Although primarily known for his two slim volumes of short fiction, he was a prolific and inventive essayist. ...Jottings under Lamplight showcases Lu Xun's versatility as a master of prose forms and his brilliance as a cultural critic with translations of sixty-two of his essays, twenty of which are translated here for the first time.While a medical student in Tokyo, Lu Xun viewed a photographic slide that purportedly inspired his literary calling: it showed the decapitation of a Chinese man by a Japanese soldier, as Chinese bystanders watched apathetically. He felt that what his countrymen needed was a cure not for their physical ailments but for their souls. Autobiographical accounts describing this and other formative life experiences are included in Jottings, along with a wide variety of cultural commentaries, from letters, speeches, and memorials to parodies and treatises.Lu Xun was remarkably well versed in Chinese tradition and playfully manipulated its ancient forms. But he also turned away from historical convention, experimenting with new literary techniques and excoriating the "slave mentality" of a population paralyzed by Confucian hierarchies. Tinged at times with notes of despair, yet also with pathos, humor, and an unparalleled caustic wit, Lu Xun's essays chronicle the tumultuous transformations of his own life and times, providing penetrating insights into Chinese culture and society.
To regard Chinese popular culture of the Mao era as “propaganda” constructed through the ideological apparatus, is a common approach. However, one can take a different, soberer research position and ...try to discern other dimensions in the cultural texts of this era. Such a novel, more complex understanding allows us to see vibrant popular culture beyond the obvious ideologically-driven narratives of the Cultural Revolution. The efficacy of this multidimensional view of Maoist popular culture is demonstrated through discussion of several model dramas, especially Red Detachment of Women.
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