War and Popular Culture

by Hung, Chang-Tai

• ISBN13: 9780520082366
• ISBN10: 0520082362
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1994-07-01
• Publisher: Univ of California Pr

Summary

This is the first comprehensive study of popular culture in twentieth-century China, and of its political impact during the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-1945 (known in China as "The War of Resistance against Japan"). Chang-tai Hung shows in compelling detail how Chinese resisters used a variety of popular cultural forms--especially dramas, cartoons, and newspapers--to reach out to the rural audience and galvanize support for the war cause. While the Nationalists used popular culture as a patriotic tool, the Communists refashioned it into a socialist propaganda instrument, creating lively symbols of peasant heroes and joyful images of village life under their rule. In the end, Hung argues, the Communists' use of popular culture contributed to their victory in revolution.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	ix
Abbreviations	xi
Acknowledgments	xiii
Map	xvi
Introduction	1	(14)
The Rise of Modern Popular Culture	15	(34)
Treaty Ports and Shanghai	16	(3)
A New Drama in Urban China	19	(9)
The Emergence of Chinese Cartoons	28	(11)
The New Press and New Journalists	39	(10)
Spoken Dramas	49	(44)
Popularization	51	(4)
The Street Play Lay Down Your Whip	55	(9)
Female Symbols of Resistance: Patriotic Courtesans and Women Warriors	64	(14)
Historical Plays	78	(7)
Traditional Dramas	85	(8)
Cartoons	93	(58)
The National Salvation Cartoon Propaganda Corps	93	(4)
Images of War	97	(27)
A New Form of Art	124	(12)
War and Peace in the Cartoons of Feng Zikai	136	(15)
Newspapers	151	(36)
Wartime Dispatches	152	(4)
Fan Changjiang and the Rhetoric of War	156	(6)
The War Correspondent	162	(5)
The Journalist as Critic	167	(6)
Dissemination and Decentralization	173	(8)
Local Newspapers	181	(6)
New Wine In Old Bottles	187	(34)
The Use of Popular Literature	189	(5)
Lao She and Lao Xiang	194	(13)
Drum Singing and Other Popular Culture Forms	207	(6)
Popular Reading Materials	213	(8)
Popular Culture in the Communist Areas	221	(49)
The Village Drama Movement	222	(12)
Art for Politics' Sake	234	(10)
Newspapers and a New Language	244	(9)
Creating a New Society	253	(9)
The Border Region Culture	262	(8)
A New Political Culture	270	(17)
Intellectuals and Participation	271	(4)
The Dissemination of Urban Popular Culture Forms	275	(4)
Village Culture	279	(8)
Appendix: Persons Interviewed	287	(4)
Notes	291	(68)
Glossary	359	(8)
Bibliography	367	(48)
Index	415