CFP: Professionalism and Amateurism in Modern and Contemporary Chinese Arts
Special Issue of Modern Chinese Literature and Culture
Guest edited by Ruijiao Dong, Man He, and Yizhou Huang
This special issue welcomes essays on professionalism and amateurism in modern and contemporary Chinese arts. From the anti-commercialism in the 1920s to the unification of “red and expert” (Mao Zedong, 1958) in socialist China; from the market-oriented professional artists after 1978 to current-day practitioners who work with foreign commissions and the international festival circuit, the evolving meanings of professionalism in Chinese arts has yielded various (un)spoken rules in the making and the reception of arts in China. Correspondingly, the definition of amateurism has also transformed in a shifting political and cultural terrain. Once, it was celebrated as the mode of participatory mass art, and, at other times, it was disparaged as cheesy and unproductive. Understandings of these two concepts, as well as their porous boundaries have been repeatedly ruptured and redefined. How do we trace this shifting ground on which professionalism and amateurism have assumed new meanings and significance? How do the expressions of professionalism and amateurism in the social, political, and cultural discourses channel into Chinese arts, and how do Chinese arts, in turn, continuously shape and reshape these discourses? How do professionalism and amateurism produce and formulate each other in Chinese arts?
We invite scholars from various backgrounds, such as literature and media Studies, art history, sociology, and Chinese studies, to name a few, to formulate an interdisciplinary conversation. To hold together such a vast area of studies, we, as theatre and performance scholars, are keen to bring in performance studies as a theoretical approach and performance as a generative concept in Chinese studies. Since the 1960s, performance studies has significantly reshaped humanistic inquiries by expanding the object of studies, interrogating critical theories, and championing interdisciplinarity. Despite their prevalence, performance and performance studies are often suggested but remain unarticulated in Chinese studies scholarship, especially when the concept of performance is evoked beyond theatre, dance, and performance art. Guobin Yang and Hongwei Bao are among the few scholars outside of theatre, dance, and performance studies who deploy performance as an analytical lens. Yang uses it to examine Red Guard radicalism and social activism during the Wuhan lockdown (The Red Guard Generation and Political Activism in China, 2016; The Wuhan Lockdown, 2022) whereas Bao explicates how “the articulation between queerness and performance inevitably generates political and critical potentials” (Contemporary Chinese Queer Performance, 2023).
Echoing Richard Schechner’s definition of performance as “restored behavior,” or “twice-behaved behavior” (Performance Studies: An Introduction, 2020), we consider both professionalism and amateurism as performative strategies for legitimizing modern and contemporary Chinese art via repeated reiterations and mutations. We further invite scholars to consider the “mutual affinities and exclusions” (Marjorie Garber, Academic Instincts, 2003) between professionalism and amateurism in the performances of both concepts. By touching on both sides of the same coin, we hope the essays together will provide not only fresh historical surveys but also innovative methodological approaches. We are interested in articles dealing with topics related but not limited to the following:
- The performances, aesthetics, and politics of professionalism and amateurism in Chinese arts
- The redefinition and evaluation of craft, skill, and technology in professional and amateur art-making
- Intercultural and international exchanges in the discourses of professionalism and amateurism
- The demarcation of professionalism and amateurism as gatekeeping and its relationship to gender, class, ethnicity, and regional inequalities
- Organizational, institutional, and social structures of Chinese arts
- Professionalization and de-professionalization of Chinese arts
- Mass and amateur arts in China
- Professional ethics (or the rejection of it) in Chinese arts
- Contemporary Chinese Arts as a professional site (zhichang)
Please send a 500-word abstract to all three guest editors, Ruijiao Dong (rdong@gradcenter.cuny.edu), Man He (mh11@williams.edu), and Yizhou Huang (yihuang@barnard.edu) and to MCLC editors Christopher Rosenmeier and Natascha Gentz (MCLC@ed.ac.uk) by October 14. Please direct your inquiries to the guest editors. Authors of selected abstracts will be invited to submit full manuscripts by April 1, 2025. All submissions should adhere to the MCLC STYLE GUIDELINES. Those considered for inclusion in the special issue will go through the regular anonymous double peer review process according to MCLC standards. The intended publication date of this MCLC special issue is 2026, volume 38.1 (summer) or 38.2 (winter).
Posted by: Yizhou Huang <yihuang@barnard.edu>