Writing Beijing (eBook)

Urban Spaces and Cultural Imaginations in Contemporary Chinese Literature and Films

Yiran Zheng (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2016
150 Seiten
Lexington Books (Verlag)
978-1-4985-3102-3 (ISBN)

Infos

This study investigates some literary configurations of Beijing through contemporary Chinese literature and films. These configurations as “revolutionary Beijing”, “traditional and masculine Beijing”, “global Beijing as a Urban Dream” are built upon three specific urban spaces: military compound, traditional dwellings, and some post-modern architectures. Representation of these spaces are revealed to be the projections of some writers and filmmakers’ own cultural imaginations.

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One of the oldest cities in the world, Beijing was an imperial capital for centuries. After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Beijing became not only the political center of the new communist country, but also the signifier of socialist ideol-ogy and revolutionary culture. Now, in the 21st century, Beijing embodies global conflicts and global connections. Over the course of the last century, then, Beijing moved from the quintessential "e;traditional"e; capital to the symbol of communist urban form and finally to a cosmopolitan metropolis. These three stages in the history of Beijing and its shifting representations are the topic of this study. Like other capitals, Beijing is much more than its physical entity. It also functions as a concept, a representation. As city planners have (and continue to) present Beijing to the world as a model, the fluctuating images of Beijing have become solidified in urban space. Today, the urban form of Beijing juxtaposes diverse spaces that span centuries, embodying the various representations of the city by its planners in different eras. These representations of space also provide possibilities for writers to rethink and rebuild the city in their literary works. Chinese writers and filmmakers often essentialize those urban spaces by making them symbols of different urban cultures, the old houses representing "e;traditional,"e; "e;patriarchal"e; Chinese culture while soviet-style buildings reflect revolu-tionary culture. Finally, the more recent sprouting of apartments, condos, and townhouses stands for the invasion of western modernity and provides evidence of global capitalism in contemporary China. Inspired by Henri Lefebvre, this study establishes a framework that connects urban spaces (representations of space) to writers and literary productions (representational space). I analyze the three major urban spatial forms of traditional, communist, and glob-alized Beijing and examine what these urban spaces mean to Chinese writers and filmmakers as well as how they use them to configure particular images of Beijing. I argue that these different configurations are actually the projections of those writers and filmmakers' own cultural imaginations; they provoke a form of emotional catharsis and also produce alternative visions of the cityscape.

Autor

Yiran Zheng is assistant professor at the Institute for Cultural Studies at Capital Normal University (CNU), Beijing.

Inhalt

Table of ContentsList of FiguresIntroductionPart IChapter 1 Work Unit Compound: An Emergence of a New Urban SpaceChapter 2 “Gongheguo xingui (New Aristocrats of the PRC)”Chapter 3 Red Nostalgia in the Literature of Military CompoundPart IIChapter 4 Siheyuan: Signifier of Traditional and Masculine CityChapter 5 Second-generation Beijing Flavor WritersChapter 6 Traditional Beijing and Masculine Beijing in Second-generation Beijing Flavor LiteraturePart IIIChapter 7 Modern and Postmodern Architectures: Presentations of the Global Context Chapter 8 Beijing FloatersChapter 9 Cosmopolitan Metropolis as An Urban Dream in Six-generation FilmsConclusion ReferencesAbout the Author

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 29.4.2016
• Zusatzinfo: 14 Illustrations including: - 1 Black & White Illustrations; - 13 Halftones, Black & White including Black & White Photographs.
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Film / TV
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Beruf / Finanzen / Recht / Wirtschaft ► Wirtschaft
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Anglistik / Amerikanistik
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturwissenschaft
• Themenwelt: Naturwissenschaften ► Geowissenschaften ► Geografie / Kartografie
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Kommunikation / Medien ► Medienwissenschaft
• Schlagworte: Beijing • Chinese City • Chinese film • Chinese literature • Cultural Studies • Urban space • urban studies
• ISBN-10: 1-4985-3102-4 / 1498531024
• ISBN-13: 978-1-4985-3102-3 / 9781498531023