New publications

posts related to new publications in Chinese studies

Trans Asia Photography 13.1

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NEW ISSUE
We are thrilled to announce that the Spring 2023 issue of Trans Asia Photography is now available online!

VOL.13, NO.1 (Spring 2023)

Introduction
Thy Phu, “Images at War: An Introduction”

Research Articles
Michelle Chase, “Picturing Solidarity: Photography and Cuban Internationalism during the Vietnam War”
Vindhya Buthpitiya, “How to Capture Birds of Freedom: Picturing Tamil Women at War”
Santasil Mallik, “GI Photos of Calcutta: Toward a Vernacular Understanding of War”
Nadine Attewell, “Hong Kong in Transition: Photography and Liberation at the End of the Pacific War”

Portfolios
Annu Palakunnathu Matthew, “Who Is Missing? Albums and Archives”
Sim Chi Yin, “Methods of Memory: Time Travels in the Archives”

Review
Elena Tajima Creef, “Back to the Future: Time Traveling to 1942”

We hope that you enjoy the latest issue and invite you to share it with your networks.

Sincerely,

Deepali Dewan
Royal Ontario Museum & University of Toronto
Yi Gu
University of Toronto
Thy Phu
University of Toronto

transasiaphotography@gmail.com
transasiaphotography.org
@transasiaphotography

Seeing Politics through Popular Culture

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List members might be interested in a new review essay I wrote titled “Seeing Politics through Popular Culture.”–Dan Chen dchen@richmond.edu

“Review Essay: Seeing Politics Through Popular Culture”
By Dan Chen
Journal of Chinese Political Science 28, 2 (Junee 2023)
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11366-023-09859-x

Abstract:

This essay surveys the scholarship on Chinese cultural politics in the reform era and argues that popular culture is a crucial realm where politics is manifested, shaped, and challenged. Based on an overview of this literature, this essay finds that Chinese popular culture remains subversive despite evolving political rule and changing socioeconomic structures. Meanwhile, the state has kept up with popular culture and managed to dominate various cultural spaces ranging from television, film, literature, music, and comedy, to celebrities and public discussions on morality. The studies reviewed here collectively illustrate a fragmented yet vigorous popular culture that actively responds to changing political and socioeconomic conditions, challenging while also reinforcing how political power is received at the grassroots level. To explain the simultaneous advancement of state control over popular culture and the cultural creativity in popular expression, this essay proposes a framework centered on authority to capture and forecast the dynamics of power struggles in popular culture. To create, compete for, and manifest authority is a key mechanism of cultural power, and it can reveal the contentions among political, market, and traditional cultural forces.

Cultures of Labor in Contemporary China

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I’m pleased to announce the publication of “Cultures of Labor in Contemporary China,” a special issue of positions: asia critique (May 2023).–Paola Iovene <iovene@uchicago.edu>

https://read.dukeupress.edu/positions

“Cultures of Labor in Contemporary China” offers an interdisciplinary investigation of the cultural and media practices of Chinese migrant workers, ranging from poetry to music and from oral storytelling to the use of social media. Contributors argue that “culture” acquires new salience with precarity on the rise and political advocacy increasingly constrained. Bridging textual and ethnographic approaches, this special issue details the negotiations that precarious workers engage in to make their positions visible, their lives livable, and their voices heard.

Table of Contents

Guest Editor’s Introduction: Cultures of Labor and the Labor of Culture
By Paola Iovene

Musica Practica: The Sound of the Beijing New Worker Band
By Yurou Zhong Continue reading Cultures of Labor in Contemporary China →

The Specter of Materialism review

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MCLC Resource Center is pleased to announce publication of Wenqing Kang’s review of The Specter of Materialism: Queer Theory and Marxism in the Age of the Beijing Consensus, by Petrus Liu. The review appears below and at its online home: https://u.osu.edu/mclc/book-reviews/wenqing-kang/. My thanks to Nicholas Kaldis, our literary studies book review editor, for ushering the review to publication.

Kirk Denton, MCLC

The Specter of Materialism: Queer Theory
and Marxism in the Age of the Beijing Consensus

By Petrus Liu

Reviewed by Wenqing Kang

MCLC Resource Center Publication (Copyright May, 2023)

Petrus Liu. The Specter of Materialism: Queer Theory and Marxism in the Age of the Beijing Consensus Durham: Duke University Press, 2023, x + 239 pp. ISBN 978-1-4780-1942-8 (paper) / ISBN 978-1-4780-1679-3 (cloth).

Queer theory emerged in the early 1990s to challenge social norms and move beyond LGBT identity politics. In recent years in the US, however, it has become a tool for advocating gender and sexual diversity and equal representation. Petrus Liu’s The Specter of Materialism: Queer Theory and Marxism in the Age of the Beijing Consensus is an imaginative intervention that aims to transform the field into a Queer Marxist critique of capitalism on a global scale.

Since its inception with Michel Foucault and Eve Sedgwick, queer theory has tended to treat the non-western world such as China as “the other” and deny its coevality in order to establish modern western sexual identity as the historical vanguard. In an earlier work, “Why Does Queer Theory Need China?”, Liu pointed out this blind spot and provided a trenchant critique of this Orientalist and Western-centric mode of thought.[1] Although queer theory should not use China as the other, the field still needs China to expand its geopolitical scope and make queer theory a tool that can provide a critical understanding of gender and sexuality in contemporary global capitalism. In this new book, Liu makes a persuasive case that China’s recent rise in the capitalist system (i.e., the Beijing Consensus) “presents an opportunity for queer theory to develop a more analytically precise vocabulary (and politics) for deciphering the matrix of gendered life and political economy” (5). Continue reading The Specter of Materialism review →

Chinese Independent Cinema Observer no. 5

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We’re delighted to announce a new issue of the Chinese Independent Cinema Observer is now online. Issue 5 is titled “The Chinese Independent Documentary Movement Revisited.” It includes interviews with some twenty significant Chinese independent documentary filmmakers, aiming to explore their creative journeys and the development of their aesthetic ideas, as well as presenting some new perspectives on their work, and new historical material. The Chinese version of this issue was originally published in Jintian (Today), as issue 3, no. 131, 2021, with Wang Xiaolu, one of the editors of our journal, as the guest editor. Today, founded in December 1978, is China’s first grassroots periodical, with the poet Bei Dao as editor-in-chief. Chinese Independent Cinema Observer has translated the Today issue into English and published it as a special issue.

The issue can be accessed on the CIFA website.

Luke Robinson

A Certain Justice

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I’m pleased to announce the publication of my new book A Certain Justice: Toward an Ecology of the Chinese Legal Imagination (University of Chicago Press, 2023).

ABSTRACT

A much-needed account of the hierarchy of justice that defines China’s unique political-legal culture.

To many outsiders, China has an image as a realm of Oriental despotism where law is at best window dressing and at worst an instrument of coercion and tyranny. In this highly original contribution to the interdisciplinary field of law and humanities, Haiyan Lee contends that this image arises from a skewed understanding of China’s political-legal culture, particularly the failure to distinguish what she calls high justice and low justice.

In the Chinese legal imagination, Lee shows, justice is a vertical concept, with low justice between individuals firmly subordinated to the high justice of the state. China’s political-legal culture is marked by a mistrust of law’s powers, and as a result, it privileges substantive over procedural justice. Calling on a wide array of narratives—stories of crime and punishment, subterfuge and exposé, guilt and redemption—A Certain Justice helps us recognize the fight for justice outside the familiar arenas of liberal democracy and the rule of law. Continue reading A Certain Justice →

Interview with Yan Jun

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New interview with Beijing-based poet and musician Yan Jun, on Asymptote.
To Save My Own Life With Experimentation: A Conversation with Yan Jun
by Matt Turner

Yan Jun is a poet, experimental musician, impresario, critic—and, notably, a creative driving force in Beijing’s experimental music scene since the early 2000s. In his illustrious career, he has published not only his own poetry and music, but also the work of colleagues who might not easily be seen elsewhere. A local fixture with global presence, he’s been featured journals of both literary and sound culture, played in venues from Beijing to Berlin, and has collaborated with many international musicians. His work stands out for spanning genres and straddling media, and his perspective is important not only as an artist, but also as someone negotiating different traditions.

I first came to know of Yan Jun through his Sub Jam label, and subsequently through his Waterland Kwanyin experimental music night, which featured different musicians every week for improvised performances. Much later, I had the pleasure of co-translating (with Haiying Weng) his 2018 sequence of irreverent poetry, 100 Poems of 10,000 Elephants, and then his new book of prose, Berlin Reflections, a collection of reminiscences and reflections on aesthetics and the function of art. In this following interview, I spoke with him on his various writerly and musical projects, which span intimate experiences of ritualized sound-making to large-scale installations of ambient imagination. 

Matt Turner (MT): To begin, can you say a little bit about your poetry, as well as the relationship of your music to poetry?

Yan Jun (YJ): I started writing poetry when I was thirteen years old, when around half of my classmates were also writing it—it was a bit of a trend in school for a while. Back then, I thought I would be a poet, but I just spent many years pursuing the phantom of being a poet, complete with romantic cliches like being drunk on stage, having a chaotic personal life, that kind of thing.

When I began making music around 2003, the way I wrote changed, and I slowly adopted a rather quiet and reflective style. Of course, my music had already been already going that way; eventually, I no longer wanted to scream out in public as either a musician or poet. After some turns musically, I arrived on a new stage—where I no longer concerned myself with reputation, but instead allowed myself to make stupid, or even failed music. Continue reading Interview with Yan Jun →

Dear Chrysanthemums

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New Publication
Dear Chrysanthemums: A Novel in Stories (Scribner, 2023)
by Fiona Sze-Lorrain 

A startling and vivid debut novel in stories from acclaimed poet and translator Fiona Sze-Lorrain, featuring deeply compelling Asian women who reckon with the past, violence, and exile—set in Shanghai, Beijing, Singapore, Paris, and New York.

Composed of several interconnected stories, each taking place in a year ending with the number six, ironically a number that in Chinese divination signifies “a smooth life,” Dear Chrysanthemums is a novel about the scourge of inhumanity, survival, and past trauma that never leaves. The women in these stories are cooks, musicians, dancers, protestors, mothers and daughters, friends and enemies, all inexplicably connected in one way or another.

“Cooking for Madame Chiang,” 1946: Two cooks work for Madame Chiang Kai-shek and prepare a foreign dish craved by their mistress, which becomes a political weapon and leads to their tragic end.

“Death at the Wukang Mansion,” 1966: Punished for her extramarital affair, a dancer is transferred to Shanghai during the Cultural Revolution and assigned to an ominous apartment in a building whose other residents often depart in coffins.

“The White Piano,” 1966: A bidding pianist from New York City settles down in Paris and is assaulted when a mysterious piano arrives from Singapore.

“The Invisible Window,” 2016: After their exile following the Tiananmen Square massacre, three women gather in a French cathedral to renew their friendship and reunite in their grief and faith.

With devastating precision, a masterly ear for language, and a profound understanding of both human cruelty and compassion, Fiona Sze-Lorrain weaves Dear Chrysanthemums, an evocative and disturbing portrait of diasporic life, the shared story of uprooting, resilience, artistic expression, and enduring love.

East Turkistan’s Right to Sovereignty

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New Publication: East Turkistan’s Right to Sovereignty: Decolonization and Beyond
by Rukiye Turdush
Rowan and Littlefield / Lexington Books

In this new book, Rukiye Turdush shows how East Turkestan, in Chinese often known as Xinjiang (“New Frontier” of the Chinese empire), was conquered and turned into a settler colony. Post-WWII decolonization, as happened in Africa and elsewhere, never touched it. These are striking arguments given the current vogue of discussions of decolonization in other contexts. This Chinese situation is especially interesting today not least because the Chinese Communist Party, before they took power in China in 1949, solemnly promised that if they came into power, they would grant freedom of secession and independence to all peoples conquered by the previous Chinese Empires.   –yrs. Magnus Fiskesjö, nf42@cornell.edu

Abstract:

This study examines the relationship between the People’s Republic of China and the people of East Turkistan; specifically, between China’s settler colonialism and East Turkistan’s independence movement. What distinguishes this study is its dispassionate analysis of the East Turkistan’s national dilemma in terms of international law and legal precedent as well as the prudence with which it distinguishes substantial evidence from claims of China’s crimes against humanity and genocide in East Turkistan that have not been fully verified yet. Continue reading East Turkistan’s Right to Sovereignty →

Sinophone Utopias

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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. Continue reading Sinophone Utopias →

M. Winter interview and new anthology

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List members may be interested in reading Anthony Tao’s interview of me for The China Project on the occasion of World Poetry Day a few days ago.​

Also, the second book of our NPC (Neue Poesie aus China) anthology series ​has come out. This volume has 94 poets. For more info, please see the publisher’s page and my blog.

See also here for the first volume, with an introduction in English.

Martin Winter <dujuan99@gmail.com>

Tombstone Histories

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NEW PUBLICATION: “Tombstone Histories” by Dan Ben-Canaan
https://earnshawbooks.com/product/tombstone-histories/

Tombstone Histories: Tales of Jewish Life in Harbin is a venture into the strange past of a great Chinese city named Harbin that was for a time home to some 38 different national communities among them a glorious Jewish community before war and revolution destroyed their lives. Tombstone Histories presents the Jewish experience in the city in a personal and unforgettable way. It paints a revealing picture, never shown before, of Jewish daily life in this faraway and alien land.

History so often ends up as just a series of tombstones, but this book provides the other side to the story—the personal details of lives which allow readers to draw their own conclusions about the human experience, especially survival.

Professor Dan Ben-Canaan <canaan@inter.net.il>

New novel by A Yi

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Source: China Daily (3/20/23)
Author hopes to make his own story
By Yang Yang | China Daily Global

A Yi, writer.[Photo provided to China Daily]

When I arrived at the bookstore where we agreed to meet, writer A Yi [阿乙] was snoozing in an armchair. I remember last time when we also met here, he told me his disease had damaged his lungs, so that walking fast while carrying several books would cause a shortage of breath.

That was nearly two years ago. We were here to talk about his book The Fraud Has Come to the South, a collection of hair-raising short stories published in April 2021, in which A Yi tried to set himself free as a writer, without limiting the length or topics of the stories. He also told me that he was working on his second novel, with much joy and freedom every day.

The novel is Weihunqi (Betrothed Wife), published by the People’s Literature Publishing House in December.

As one of the best novelists in China, A Yi is famous for his unique writing style, accurate diction, and rich and often bizarre imagination. At public occasions, or while meeting with friends, he always appears warm, modest, candid and humorous. In contrast, his stories are often grim, full of greedy and ruthless characters, as well as uncontrollable fates. His novella, A Perfect Crime, has been translated into French, English and other languages. Continue reading New novel by A Yi →

Wang Yuewen’s ‘Home Mountain’

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Source: China Daily (2/25/23)
A village finds its meaning
By Yang Yang | China Daily

The cover of the novel, Jiashan, which follows the lives of a rural family over five generations.[Photo/China Daily]

Set against the turbulent backdrop of war and upheaval, novel takes an insightful look into a community buffeted by history, Yang Yang reports.

One day in May, 1927, a wealthy man Chen Xiufu, or the Revered Youde from Shawan village in Central China’s Hunan province, went to the county seat to seek information about his son Chen Shaofu who was serving in the army. After a military coup in Changsha, Hunan’s capital, the county’s head was killed. Chen Shaofu evaded the danger by returning to the countryside, where he set up a primary school with other villagers.

Starting at the end of Northern Expedition between 1924 and 1927, the 699-page novel Jiashan 家山 (Home Mountain) by Wang Yuewen [王跃文] unfolds the undulating history of Shawan village throughout the revolutionary period, the founding of the People’s Republic of China and the construction of the country over the next two decades. In total, the story spans five generations of the Chen family.

At the book’s launch ceremony recently in Beijing, Li Jingze, literary critic and vice-president of China Writers Association, said Wang’s work provides an insight about how rural communities, with their long-existing social structure and cultural practices, created a new identity amid tremendous historical changes. Continue reading Wang Yuewen’s ‘Home Mountain’ →

Digital Masquerade

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Dear Colleagues,

I am happy to announce the publication of my book Digital Masquerade: Feminist Rights and Queer Media in China (New York University Press, 2023). 

https://nyupress.org/9781479811847/digital-masquerade/

You can purchase the book through the NYU Press website and receive a 30% discount by using the promo code TAN30-FM. Please feel free to share this code. 

Jia Tan

Abstract: Digital Masquerade offers a trenchant and singular analysis of the convergence of digital media, feminist and queer culture, and rights consciousness in China. Jia Tan examines the formation of what she calls “rights feminism,” or the emergence of rights consciousness in Chinese feminist formations, as well as queer activism and rights advocacy. Expanding on feminist and queer theory of masquerade, she develops the notion of “digital masquerade” to theorize the co-constitutive role of digital technology as assemblage and entanglement in the articulation of feminism, queerness, and rights.

Drawing from interviews with various feminist and queer media practitioners, participant observation at community events, and detailed analyses of a variety of media forms such as social media, electronic journals, digital filmmaking, film festivals, and dating app videos, Jia Tan captures the feminist, queer, and rights articulations that are simultaneously disruptive of and conditioned by state censorship, technological affordances, and dominant social norms.

Author: Jia Tan is currently Associate Professor of Cultural Studies in the Department of Cultural and Religious Studies at The Chinese University of Hong Kong.