Kelly Kar Yue Chan

Chi Sum Garfield Lau

This book investigates the internationalization of Chinese culture in recent decades and the global dimensions of Chinese culture from comparative and interdisciplinary perspectives. It covers a variety of topics concerning the contemporary significance of Chinese culture in its philosophical, literary and artistic manifestations, including literature, film, performing arts, creative media, linguistics, translations and philosophical ideas. The book explores the reception of Chinese culture in different geographic locations and how the global reception of Chinese culture contrasts with the local Chinese community. The chapters collectively cover gender studies and patriarchal domination in Chinese literature in comparison to the world literature, explorations on translation of Chinese culture in the West, Chinese studies as an academic discipline in the West, and Chinese and Hong Kong films and performances in the global context. The book is an excellent resource for both scholars and students interested in the development of Chinese culture on the global stage in the 21st Century.

Comparative and Interdisciplinary Perspectives

Chinese Culture in the 21st Century and its Global Dimensions

This book presents an essential contribution to approaches in the studies of film, literature, performance, translation, and other art forms within the Chinese cultural tradition, examining East-West cultural exchange and providing related intertextual dialogue. The assessment of cultural exchange in the East-West context involves the original source, the adapted text, and other enigmatic extras incurred during the process. It aims to evaluate the linkage among, but not limited to, literature, film, music, art, and performance. The sections unpack how canonical texts can be read anew in modern society; how ideas can be circulated around the world based on translation, adaptation, and reinvention; and how the global networks of circulation can facilitate cultural interaction and intervention. The authors engage discussions on longstanding debates and controversies relating to Chinese literature as world literature; reconciliations of cultural identity under the contemporary waves of globalization and glocalization; Chinese-Western film adaptations and their impact upon cinematic experiences; an understanding of gendered roles and voices under the social gaze; and the translation of texts from intertextual angles. An enriching intellectual, intertextual resource for researchers and students enthusiastic about the adaptation and transformation process of different genres, this book is a must-have for Sinophiles. It will appeal to world historians interested in the global networks of connectivity, scholars researching cultural life in East Asia, and China specialists interested in cultural studies, translation, and film, media and literary studies.

Global Networks, Mediation, and Intertextuality

Cross-Cultural Encounters in Modern and Premodern China

This book investigates how the breakdown of the family and the conventional gendering of roles gives rise to terrorist violence as portrayed in various African Anglophone narratives written by internationally renowned authors including Chinua Achebe, Doris Lessing, J.M. Coetzee and the award-winning contemporary Moroccan author Laila Lalami. It proves that the indispensable relationship between an eroding family structure and terror is not only an observation found in African Anglophone narratives, but, rather, that this relationship can help us to better comprehend terror as a globalized phenomenon in the twenty-first century. Both the novels and the real-life cases of various terrorist figures such as Osama bin Laden and Mohamed Morsi seemingly suggest a linkage between an alternative family institution in the form of fundamentalist religious sects and terror. Referencing paratexts in fiction and biography, the book adopts a ground-breaking approach to juxtapose the portrayal of fictional characters to the life story of Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani student who has resisted Taliban rule in Afghanistan at great personal risk. When viewed together, these paratexts capably represent a viable afterlife of ideology and narrative to the colonial legacy of terror, and the reinvention of that legacy as a tradition of contemporary fundamentalism in response to the failure of states to protect the family.

Chi Sum Garfield Lau

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