Utopia and utopianism in the contemporary Chinese context : texts, ideas, spaces /

Utopia and utopianism in the contemporary Chinese context : texts, ideas, spaces / edited by David Der-wei Wang, Angela Ki Che Leung, and Zhang Yinde. - Hong Kong : Hong Kong University Press, (c)2020. - 1 online resource

Issued as part of book collections on Project MUSE.

Includes bibliographies and index.

Preface / Prologue. The formation and evolution of the concept of state in Chinese culture / Imagining "all under heaven" : the political, intellectual, and academic background of a new utopia / Liberalism and utopianism in the New Culture movement : case studies of Chen Duxiu and Hu Shi / The Panglossian dream and dark consciouscness : modern Chinese literature and utopia / Nihilism beneath revolutionary utopianism : on Wang Jingwei's "Self-willed sacrifice" / The world in common : utopian or cosmopolitan? A remark on the political thought of Xiong Shili / Anticipatory utopia and redemptive utopia in postrevolutionary China / Utopianism is a humanism : about Ge Fei's Jiangnan trilogy / The spirit of Zhuangzi and the Chinese utopian imagination / Traveling through time and searching for utopia : utopian imaginaries in Internet time-travel fiction / From silent China to sonorous Hong Kong : a literary sketch / Before and after The midnight after : Occupy Central's specters of utopia and dystopia / Legalistic and utopian : Hong Kong's Umbrella Movement / Coda. Utopia, Dystopia, heterotopia : theoretical cross-examinations on ideal, reality, and social innovation / David Der-wei Wang -- Cho-yun Hsu -- Ge Zhaoguang (translated by Michael Duke and Josephine Chiu-Duke) -- Peter Zarrow -- David Der-wei Wang -- Xu Jilin (translated by Hang Tu) -- Huang Kuan-Min -- Hang Tu -- Yinde Zhang -- Jianmei Liu -- Shuang Xu (translated by Carlos Rojas) -- Chien-Hsin Tsai -- Carlos Rojas -- Sebastian Veg -- Chan Koonchung.

Utopia and Utopianism in the Contemporary Chinese Context: Texts, Ideas, Spaces decisively demonstrates the extent to which utopianism has shaped political thought, cultural imaginaries, and social engagement after it was introduced into the Chinese context in the nineteenth century. In fact, pursuit of utopia has often led to action--such as the Chinese Revolution and the Umbrella Movement--and contested consequences. Covering a time span that goes from the late Qing to our days, the authors show that few ideas have been as influencing as utopia, which has compellingly shaped the imaginaries that underpin China's historical change. Utopianism contributed to the formation of the Chinese state itself--shaping the thought of key figures of the late Qing and early Republican eras such as Kang Youwei and Sun Yat-sen--and outlived the labyrinthine debates of the second halve of the twentieth century, both under Mao's rule and during the post-socialist era. Even in the current times of dystopian narratives, a period in which utopia seems to be less influential than in the past, its manifestations persistently provide lifelines against fatalism or cynicism. This collection shows how profoundly utopian ideas have nurtured both the thought of crucial figures during these historical times, the new generation of mainland Chinese and Sinophone intellectuals, and the hopes of twenty-first-century Hong Kong activists.



9882200842 9789882200845


Utopias--History.--China


Electronic Books.

HX806 / .U867 2020