Contemporary Chinese Cinema and Visual Culture - (Global East Asian Screen Cultures) by Sheldon Lu (Paperback)

About the Book

Sheldon Lu traces how filmmakers and artists from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan have addressed questions of identity, gender, sexuality and class and how their work reflects China's transition to a globalized transnational state.

Book Synopsis

Honourable Mention, Best Monograph Award, BAFTSS Publication Awards 2022

Sheldon Lu's wide-ranging new book investigates how filmmakers and visual artists from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan have envisioned China as it transitions from a socialist to a globalized capitalist state. It examines how the modern nation has been refashioned and re-imagined in order to keep pace with globalization and transnationalism.

At the heart of Lu's analysis is a double movement in the relationship between nation and transnationalism in the Chinese post-socialist state. He considers the complexity of how the Chinese economy is integrated in the global capitalist system while also remaining a repressive body politic with mechanisms of control and surveillance. He explores the interrelations of the local, the national, the subnational, and the global as China repositions itself in the world.

Lu considers examples from feature and documentary film, mainstream and marginal cinema, and a variety of visual arts: photography, painting, digital video, architecture, and installation. His close case studies include representations of class, masculinity and sexuality in contemporary Taiwanese and Chinese cinema; the figure of the sex worker as a symbol of modernity and mobility; and artists' representations of Beijing at the time of the 2008 Olympics.

Review Quotes

A timely intervention in academic debates and visual productions that challenges the reader to rethink familiar concepts (e.g., nation, masculinity, environment) and reconfigure relationships between cinema and other arts. A must-read for those interested in the expert judgment of a leading voice in the field.

In a world ravaged by pandemics, ecological degradation, sexual violence, racial assaults, territorial disputes, and trade wars, Sheldon Lu's book makes a critical intervention into ongoing debates about China by focusing on the notion of the "nation" in cinema and related visual arts. Absolutely essential reading.

Sheldon Lu has contributed significantly to the study of Chinese language cinema, literature, and visual arts over the years, and initiated important concepts such as transnational cinema which has become an indispensable framework for scholars and students to look at Chinese cinema, world cinemas, and visual culture. His latest book covers a broad array of visual and artistic medium: film, painting, graffiti, photography, architecture, installation, performance and poetry. It is illustrated with photographs of artworks and stills from films which contribute to the understanding of the text. This book brings the subject matter alive and up to date, revealing the diversity and vibrancy of Chinese aesthetic culture for readers.

About the Author

Sheldon Lu is Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature at UC Davis, USA. He is the author and editor of more than a dozen books in English and Chinese. These include Chinese Modernity and Global Biopolitics: Studies in Literature and Visual Culture (2007), China, Transnational Visuality, Global Postmodernity (2001), and From Historicity to Fictionality: The Chinese Poetics of Narrative (1994). Chinese-Language Film: Historiography, Poetics, Politics (co-edited with Emilie Y. Y. Yeh, 2005) was named a Choice Outstanding Academic Title.