Transforming Monkey : adaptation and representation of a Chinese epic /
Hongmei Sun.
- Seattle : University of Washington Press, (c)2018.
- 1 online resource
Includes bibliographies and index.
Who is Sun Wukong? The image of the Monkey King in journey to the west -- The transmutable Monkey : between theatre and fiction in traditional China -- From trickster to hero : national mythmaking in wartime and Maoist China -- From fighter to lover : the postsocialist hero in the PRC and Hong Kong -- Chronotope and orientalism: time travel between China and America -- Of Monkey, human, and god: the performance of Asian American identity.
"An analysis of historical, transcultural, and transmedia adaptation, Transforming Monkey: Adaptation and Representation of a Chinese Epic examines the ever-changing image of Sun Wukong (aka Monkey, or the Monkey King), in literature and popular culture both in China and the United States. A protean protagonist of the sixteenth century novel Journey to the West (Xiyou ji), the Monkey King's image has been adapted in distinctive ways for the representation of various social entities, including China as a newly founded nation state, the younger generation of Chinese during the postsocialist period, and the representation of the Chinese and Chinese American as a social 'other' in American popular culture. The juxtaposition of various manifestations of the same character in the book present the adaptation history of Monkey as a masquerade, enabling readers to observe not only the masks, but also the mask-wearers, as well as underlying factors such as literary and political history, state ideologies, market economies, issues of race and ethnicity, and politics of representation and cross-cultural translation Transforming Monkey demonstrates the social and political impact of adaptations through the hands of its users while charting the changes to the image of Sun Wukong in modern history and his participation in the construction and representation of Chinese identity. The first manuscript focusing on the transformations of the Monkey King image and the meanings this image carries, Transforming Monkey argues for the importance of adaptations as an indivisible part of the classical work, and as a revealing window to examine history, culture, and the world" --
2017059373
Sun, Wukong (Fictitious character) --History and criticism. Sun, Wukong--In literature.
Epic literature, Chinese--History and criticism. Identity (Psychology) in literature--History and criticism.