Geng Song

"The Fragile Scholar examines the pre-modern construction of Chinese masculinity from the popular image of the fragile scholar (caizi) in late imperial Chinese fiction and drama. The book is an original contribution to the study of the construction of masculinity in the Chinese context from a comparative perspective. Its central thesis is that the concept of "masculinity" in pre-modern China was conceived in the network of hierarchical social and political power in a homosocial context rather than in opposition to "woman." In other words, gender discourse was more power-based than sex-based in pre-modern China, and Chinese masculinity was androgynous in nature. The author explains how the caizi discourse embodied the mediation between elite culture and popular culture by giving voice to the desire, fantasy, wants and tastes of urbanites."--BOOK JACKET.

Power and Masculinity in Chinese Culture

The Fragile Scholar

Ruoyun Bai

The past two decades witnessed the rise of television entertainment in China. Although television networks are still state-owned and Party-controlled in China, the ideological landscape of television programs has become increasingly diverse and even paradoxical, simultaneously subservient and defiant, nationalistic and cosmopolitan, moralistic and fun-loving, extravagant and mundane. Studying Chinese television as a key node in the network of power relationships, therefore, provides us with a unique opportunity to understand the tension-fraught and , paradox-permeated conditions of Chinese post-socialism. This book argues for a serious engagement with television entertainment. rethinking, It addresses the following questions. How is entertainment television politically and culturally significant in the Chinese context? How have political, industrial, and technological changes in the 2000s affected the way Chinese television relates to the state and society? How can we think of media regulation and censorship without perpetuating the myth of a self-serving authoritarian regime vs. a subdued cultural workforce? What do popular televisual texts tell us about the unsettled and reconfigured relations between commercial television and the state? The book presents a number of studies of popular television programs that are sensitive to the changing production and regulatory contexts for Chinese television in the twenty-first century. As an interdisciplinary study of the television industry, this book covers a number of important issues in China today, such as censorship, nationalism, consumerism, social justice, and the central and local authorities. As such, it will appeal to a broad audience including students and scholars of Chinese culture and society, media studies, television studies, and cultural studies.

Entertaining the Nation

Chinese Television in the Twenty-First Century

The serial narrative is one of the most robust and popular forms of storytelling in contemporary China. With a domestic audience of one billion-plus and growing transnational influence and accessibility, this form of storytelling is becoming the centerpiece of a fast-growing digital entertainment industry and a new symbol and carrier of China’s soft power. Televising Chineseness: Gender, Nation, and Subjectivity explores how television and online dramas imagine the Chinese nation and form postsocialist Chinese gendered subjects. The book addresses a conspicuous paradox in Chinese popular culture today: the coexistence of increasingly diverse gender presentations and conservative gender policing by the government, viewers, and society. Using first-hand data collected through interviews and focus group discussions with audiences comprising viewers of different ages, genders, and educational backgrounds, Televising Chineseness sheds light on how television culture relates to the power mechanisms and truth regimes that shape the understanding of gender and the construction of gendered subjects in postsocialist China.

Gender, Nation, and Subjectivity

Televising Chineseness

Offers new understandings of gender construction and nation-building through the lens of recent Chinese television programs.

The Fragile Scholar examines the pre-modern construction of Chinese masculinity from the popular image of the fragile scholar (caizi) in late imperial Chinese fiction and drama. The book is an original contribution to the study of the construction of masculinity in the Chinese context from a comparative perspective (Euro-American). Its central thesis is that the concept of "masculinity" in pre-modern China was conceived in the network of hierarchical social and political power in a homosocial context rather than in opposition to "woman." In other words, gender discourse was more power-based than sex-based in pre-modern China, and Chinese masculinity was androgynous in nature. The author explains how the caizi discourse embodied the mediation between elite culture and popular culture by giving voice to the desire, fantasy, wants and tastes of urbanites.

在今日中國的語境中，文化研究的首要任務是什麼？應該扮演什麼樣的角色？是繼續"五四"以來"現代性"的啟蒙，還是在全球化的背景下尋找"中國性"，站在第三世界的立場上反抗霸權主義？這是本書所要探討的焦點。 圍繞著全球化對當代中國社會的影響以及中國文化的應對／抵抗策略，本書內容涉及了國際政治、國際關係、歷史、文學、電影、性別研究、旅遊業、媒體與大眾文化、廣告與視覺藝術、網路文化以及當代中國政治、經濟等諸多領域，集中體現了文化研究的跨學科特色。其中不少議題是當前社會廣泛關注的"熱門"話題。

當代文化的後殖民解讀

全球化與'中國性

Qingxiang Yang

China's post-80s generation, sometimes referred to as Generation Y, is the first whose members have grown up entirely within the reformist era. They are keen to distinguish themselves from their predecessors in every aspect of life. To Western eyes, this generation of Chinese, who are highly engaged with the world, display the ambiguities and paradoxes associated with China's economic rise: They are both nationalistic and cosmopolitan, subservient and defiant, hedonistic and mundane, materialistic and aspirational. This volume brings together some of the most popular and influential writers of this generation. Most of them remain largely unknown outside China. The short stories have been translated into English by a team of enthusiastic and skilled sinologists, and represent some of the "sweetest songs" that tell of the pains and dreams, frustrations and desires, crises and endeavors of this generation in urban China. The works also demonstrate how "youth" itself is commodified in a system of writing and production that significantly breaks away from the old socialist mode. The book is a must-read for those who are interested in not only the China of today but also of tomorrow. Not for sale in mainland China

Geng Song

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