Sinophone Utopias

NEW PUBLICATION Sinophone Utopias: Exploring Futures Beyond the China Dream, edited by Andrea Riemenschnitter, Jessica Imbach, and Justyna Jaguscik (Cambria Press; Cambria Sinophone World Series, general editor: Victor Mair). 9781621966463 •  $129.99  • 484pp. (includes B&W images)
Available in print and digital editions at https://www.cambriapress.com/SinophoneUtopias

The creativity, diversity, and experimental character of aesthetic and literary responses to the sociopolitical transitions in Southeast and East Asia as well as the aesthetic reverberations provoked by, among other factors, the newest wave of utopian thought in mainland China’s political discourse have so far not been tackled systematically. Whereas Douwe Fokkema’s pathbreaking overview of ancient to modern utopian concepts and narratives in China and the West provides an invaluable source for students and scholars of the early modern forms of transcultural utopian imagination, it does not include the more recent versions of state futurology—in particular Xi Jinping’s China Dream narrative and related ideological revaluations. Nor does it engage with the contemporary literary and transmedia explorations of the imagined alternative Chinese worlds that are currently in the process of coming into being. This study thus delves into the vibrant space of Chinese and Sinophone cultural negotiations between state and grassroots utopianist discourses in order to tease out both the declining and emergent visions for the future as embedded in the analyzed literary narratives and visual representations.

Focusing on counternarratives that challenge or undermine the grand nationalist Chinese theme, this book studies the ways Sinophone artists, writers, and other cultural agents reimagine a future (world) society that can be more tolerant of cultural, ecological, ethnic, gender and ideological diversity. It departs from the existing scholarly inquiries into Chinese utopian thought by focusing on its reappearance, in multiple shapes, in contemporary cultural representations (art, performance, literature, film, garden concepts, rural reconstruction projects, etc.) rather than on the philosophical and historical (utopianist) roots of Chinese modernity. Furthermore, this book highlights those reconceptualizations that reflect on flexible blueprints of future community life or, more openly, forms of togetherness, that are suitable for continuous (re)negotiation rather than supporting fixed, top-down enforced models. It demonstrates where, and how, bottom-up engagement for a better future is flourishing in Chinese and Sinophone contexts, and studies in which aesthetically articulated ways the expectations of intellectuals, creative workers, and social activists reach out beyond the currently circulating, state-issued futurologies.

Sinophone Utopias will be a valuable resource for scholars of Chinese and Sinophone studies as well as scholars of adjacent disciplines who are engaged in critical cultural studies and are interested in understanding the emerging cultural and political dynamics of utopianism in East Asia. Each chapter offers readily accessible examples of currently circulating utopian articulations, thus providing valuable insights into the key debates and concepts in Sinophone utopian discourse. As such, this book will also be of great value to instructors and students of modern China as well as to a general audience interested in utopian ideas and their manifold cultural articulations in the Sinosphere. This book offers a preliminary roadmap to the establishment of Sinophone utopia studies as a new supplement to the broader field of Sinophone studies, thus catering to a systematic, transcultural approach to contemporary utopian thought.

PRAISE FOR THE BOOK

“This comprehensive book charts the multifarious ways in which China-centric futurologies—the promises of the China dream based on rising Chinese power and wealth—are challenged by writers and artists across the Sinophone world. They do so by imagining and constructing critical Sinophone utopias, even as they must work with the dystopic and ruinous realities on the ground. Sinophone Utopias is an important and timely book.” —Shu-mei Shih, Irving and Jean Stone Chair in the Humanities, UCLA

“A cornucopia of interpretative insights based on abundant sources, this impressive collection prompts a fundamental rethinking of Chinese discourses, fictional and historical. Be they about philosophy, literature, architecture, film, new media, political activism, the performing arts, academic debate, and other realms of knowledge production, such discourses can now be understood as variants of an inexhaustible series of engagements with utopia in thought and practice. This stimulating tome will appeal to all those invested in the study of China and in the generative agency of hope.” —Rey Chow, Andrew W. Mellon Distinguished Professor of the Humanities, Duke University

“Engaging an important topic in the emergent field of Chinese and Sinophone utopianisms, this book brings together essays that effectively explore how various kinds of ‘existential utopias’ are configured. Readers are inspired to (re)consider the validity of existing theories related to utopia as a theoretical framework for analyzing the contributing factors to explorations of the future. Having raised timely issues and defined related problems in a very useful manner, this conceptual project is of interest to readers from different disciplines.” —Yiu-Wai Chu, Professor and Director of Hong Kong Studies Programme, The University of Hong Kong

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Figures
Introduction (Andrea Riemenschnitter, Jessica Imbach, and Justyna Jaguscik)

Part I: Technology

Chapter 1. Liu Cixin’s “The Poetry Cloud” and the Utopian Role of Literature (Wendy Larson)

Chapter 2. Do China’s Robots Dream the China Dream? Chinese Artificial Intelligence Poetry: Between Aesthetics and Politics (Joanna Krenz)

Chapter 3. Female Utopia on the World Wide Web: Matriarchal Fiction in Chinese Internet Literature (Shuang Xu)

Chapter 4. Life in the Surveillance Dystopia: From Xu Bing’s Dragonfly Eyes to Lu Yang’s Digital Reincarnation (Kiu-wai Chu)

Part II: Values and Traditions

Chapter 5. Re-Imaginations of Utopian Socialism and Post-Solar Nightmares: Liu Cixin’s “Wandering Earth Project” (Nele Noesselt)

Chapter 6. Between Utopianism and Political Realism: Liu Xiaobo, Political Confucians, and the CCP (Ralph Weber)

Chapter 7. Existential Utopia: Ge Fei’s “Peach Blossom Beauty” (Qian Cui)

Chapter 8. The Road to Revolutionary Utopia: Buddhist Rhetoric in the Red Narrative (Yunxia Chu)

Chapter 9. On “Superfluous Men”: Ban Yu’s Revitalization of Literary Tradition (Kun Zhao)

Part III: Places and Stages

Chapter 10. Dialectical Utopianism: Yan Lianke’s Lenin’s Kisses and Ou Ning’s Bishan Commune (Carlos Rojas)

Chapter 11. Rethinking Utopia Through Theater: World Factory and The Xiao Ping Incident by Grass Stage (Justyna Jaguscik)

Chapter 12. Utopias of Unalienated Labor: The Staging of We2s. Labor Exchange Market (Paola Iovene)

Chapter 13. Cultivating Heterotopia: Ideology and Affect in Chinese Gardens (William Callahan)

Part IV: Specters of the Past

Chapter 14. Anti-Utopia and the Poetics of Ruins, 1978–2018: A View from Visual Art and Poetry (Giorgio Strafella and Daria Berg)

Chapter 15. Specters of Utopia in Diceng Wenxue: Yu Hua’s The Seventh Day (Jessica Imbach)

Chapter 16. Revisiting Hong Kong’s Myth of Success: Utopian and Dystopian Forces in the (New) Lion Rock Spirit (Helena Wu)

Chapter 17. Beyond the Chinese Dream: On the Unbecoming of Chineseness in Chan Koonchung’s China Trilogy (Alvin K. Wong)

Chapter 18. Post-utopian Returns: The Peach Blossom Spring in Contemporary Literature and Landscape Art (Andrea Riemenschnitter)

ABOUT THE EDITORS
Andrea Riemenschnitter (PhD, University of Goettingen) is Professor of Modern Chinese Language and Literature at the University of Zurich.
Jessica Imbach (PhD, University of Zurich) is Senior Lecturer in Chinese Studies at the Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies, University of Zurich.
Justyna Jaguscik (PhD, University of Zurich) is Senior Lecturer in Chinese Language, Culture and Society at the University of Bern.

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