China

30. Sep 2022

Sensing the Sinophone: Urban Memoryscapes in Contemporary Fiction

China, cultural studies, Hong Kong, InFocus, literature, Shangahi, Taipei, urban development

What happens when the city you live in changes so rapidly that space melts into time and your memories can find no recognisable place to take hold? This kind of morphing urban reality was and is experienced by many in east Asian mega cities, where what cultural critic Dai Jinhua calls the “destructiveness of construction work” (“Imagined Nostalgia.” Boundary 2 24 (3), 1997: 146) is a defining factor. For cities like Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Taipei, the 1990s saw a new level of urban transformation that fundamentally affected quotidian ways of life and urban identities, a tendency that continued well into the 21st century. In my new monograph Sensing the Sinophone: Urban Memoryscapes in Contemporary Fiction, I argue that fiction writing has the ability to capture both the sense of ongoing transformation and the complex and often ambiguous identity politics that follow. More than any other type of writing, narrative fiction can accommodate the paradox that it is the very disappearance of any material links to the past, which fosters a renewed interest in the private and public histories under erasure. Through the original framework of literary sensory studies, I use whole-body engagements with the cityscape as a perspective that bridges the divide between the elusive memories of the past and the material deconstruction of the present. I look at unconventional sensory modes such as temperature, pain, sense of self, and sense of time, as well as the cross-sensory and metaphorical nature of familiar sensations such as smell or sight.

1. Apr 2022

The People’s Map of Global China: Denmark profile

China, InFocus, International relations

While Denmark retains its pragmatic approach to China and largely frames the Sino—Danish relationship in terms of economic diplomacy, controversies related to human rights have strained bilateral ties in recent years.

31. Mar 2020

Covid-19, International Trade and Global China: Reflections from Yiwu

China, COVID-19, InFocus

By Magnus Marsden, University of Sussex The Covid-19 epidemic has in all likelihood brought to an end the fieldwork activities of the TRODITIES project. Since 2015, team members have documented and analysed the dynamics of the Chinese international trade city of Yiwu that is a base to over 12,000 foreign traders and a key hub […]

22. Jan 2014

Farming is Ugly: Reform, Friction and Bishan Commune

China, culture, development, InFocus, politics, Rural development, Tourism

From 2014, Anhui Province will pilot a reform of the residential land market in China, thus integrating rural Anhui in the national housing market. On the opposite note, artist and activist Ou Ning has proposed the Bishan time money currency, intending to establish an alternative economic circuit in Bishan Village. Bishan Village, Yi […]

18. Jun 2013

Unearthing the Past: From Independent Filmmaking to Social Change

China, cultural studies, documentaries, film, InFocus, media, migrant workers, social activism, village elections

Wu Wenguang, considered the father of independent Chinese documentary film, has since 2005 slowly but surely been handing over the camera to people on the margins and to younger generations of Chinese documentary filmmaking. In 2010 Wu and Caochangdi Workstation initiated the Folk Memory Documentary Project, where young filmmakers go to the countryside to gather […]

12. Mar 2013

Another China – other inequalities

China, gender, Human rights, InFocus

By Mai Corlin, Ph.D. student, Aarhus University Gender inequality is not simply the unfair treatment of men and women. It is a complex issue tied to a whole range of disparities in society at large, argues Professor Min Dongchao, who has just been awarded a Marie Curie International Incoming Fellowship and will be a guest […]

2. Nov 2012

Slaget om Kinas framtida ledarskap av Johan Lagerkvist

China, Elections, government, InFocus, politics

Med början den 8 november ska det kinesiska kommunistpartiet hålla sin 18:e nationella partikongress. En hel värld som har blivit samberoende med Kinas ekonomi kommer att påverkas av det förestående maktskiftet. Omgivningen svävar dock i ovisshet om den nya politbyråns sammansättning och framtida politik, i en atmosfär där datum för kongressen offentliggjordes först den 28 […]

29. Oct 2012

Xi Jinping: My road into politics

China, government, InFocus, politics

An interview from 2000 with China’s Vice President Xi Jinping Translated into Western language for the first time At the 18th Congress of the Communist Party of China to be held in November 2012, China’s Vice President Xi Jinping is expected to be elected as the new Secretary General of the party. In August 2000, […]

15. Oct 2012

Mo Yan på tryggt avstånd från politiken av Johan Lagerkvist

China, culture, democracy, government, Human rights, InFocus, International relations, literature, politics

Svenska Akademiens beslut att 2012 års Nobelpris i litteratur går till den kinesiske författaren Mo Yan är ett val som får enorm uppmärksamhet i Kina. Det är svårt att överskatta Nobelprisernas betydelse i ett land och en kultur där dessa utmärkelser – i synnerhet de naturvetenskapliga – varit stora nyheter alltsedan reformpolitiken inleddes 1978. I en […]

3. Oct 2012

What happened to political reform in the second term of China’s Hu Jintao-Wen Jiabao administration?

China, democracy, government, InFocus, politics

In a recent blog-article by Deng Yuwen the outgoing leadership of Hu-Wen was given its score-card, titled “Ten grave problems”. Number ten was the problem of lack of political reform, after the original promising start. While we are waiting for the change of leadership to come in the 18.Party Congress in November, let us look […]

China

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