Witness Against History

by Braester, Yomi

• ISBN13: 9780804747929
• ISBN10: 080474792X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-06-01
• Publisher: Stanford Univ Pr

Summary

Witness against Historyoffers fresh readings of milestones in twentieth-century Chinese literature and cinema. The book reveals how these texts and films, which seem to proclaim faith in modernity, nevertheless doubt the possibility of changing the course of history. In the aftermath of violent events, the authors question their ability to rescue the nation or even create a space for public debate. The witness against history is ultimately a critique of witnessing itself.

Author Biography

Yomi Braester is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and Film Studies and Adjunct Professor of Asian Languages and Literature at the University of Washington.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
Note on Translations	xiii
Abbreviations	xv
Introduction: Critical Discourse in Twentieth-Century China	1	(30)
I. MAY FOURTH AND ITS DISCONTENTS
Dreaming a Cure for History: The Resistance to Historical Consciousness Within the May Fourth Movement	31	(25)
Rewriting Tradition, Misreading History: Twentieth-Century (Sub)versions of Pan Jinlian's Story	56	(25)
Revolution and Revulsion: Ideology, Monstrosity, and Phantasmagoria in 1930s Chinese Cinema	81	(25)
The Purloined Lantern: Maoist Semiotics and Public Discourse in Early PRC Film and Drama	106	(25)
II. WOUNDED MEMORIES
A Blinding Red Light: The Displacement of Rhetoric in the Cinema of the Early 1980s	131	(15)
Disjointed Time, Split Voices: Retrieving Historical Experience in Scar Literature	146	(12)
Retelling Taiwan: Identity and Dislocation in Post-Chiang Mystery	158	(19)
The Aesthetics and Anesthetics of Memory: PRC Avant-Garde Fiction	177	(15)
Memory at a Standstill: From Maohistory to Hooligan History	192	(15)
Epilogue	207	(4)
Notes	211	(26)
Bibliography	237	(20)
Index	257