Occidentalism: A Theory of Counter-Discourse in Post-Mao ChinaOxford University Press, 1995 M09 7 - 256 pages Xiaomei Chen offers an insightful account of the unremittingly favorable depiction of Western culture and its negative characterization of Chinese culture in post-Mao China from 1978-1988. Chen examines the cultural and political interrelations between the East and West from a vantage point more complex than that accommodated by most current theories of Western imperialism and colonialism. Going beyond Edward Said's construction in Orientalism of cross-cultural appropriations as a defining facet of Western imperialism, Chen argues that the appropriation of Western discourse--what she calls "Occidentalism"--can have a politically and ideologically liberating effect on contemporary non-Western culture. Using China as a focus of her analysis, Chen examines a variety of cultural media, from Shakesperian drama, to Western modernist poetry, to contemporary Chinese television. She thus places sinology in the general context of Western theoretical discourses, such as Eurocentrism, postcolonialism, nationalism, modernism, feminism, and literary hermeneutics, showing that it has a vital role to play in the study of Orient and Occident and their now unavoidable symbiotic relationship. Occidentalism presents a new model of comparative literary and cultural studies that reenvisions cross-cultural appropriation. |
Contents
| 3 | |
He shang Controversy | 27 |
Shakespeare Ibsen and Brecht as Counter Others | 49 |
The Menglong Movement | 69 |
RetroInfluence in Comparative Literary Studies | 99 |
A Suggestive Theater Revisited | 119 |
On the Problematics of Occidentalism in CrossCultural Gender Perspective | 137 |
Postscript | 157 |
NOTES | 169 |
GLOSSARY | 203 |
| 215 | |
| 233 | |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
American anti-official argued Artaud Beijing Bing Xin Brecht Chen China Chinese audiences Chinese culture Chinese drama Chinese intellectuals Chinese literature Chinese readers Chinese society Chinese theater Chinese tradition Chinese Woman claim Confucian contemporary Chinese critics critique Cultural Revolution depicted English essay feminist Fourth Gao Xingjian Guo Moruo Hong Shen Hu Shi Huang Zuolin imperialism imperialist liberation Mao Zedong Maoist Mei Lanfang menglong poetry misreading Miss Youlan misunderstanding modern Chinese modernist movement nese official Orientalism paradoxical Peer Gynt perspective play poems poetic poets political post-Mao China Pound Press problematic production reception Renmin revolutionary ruling ideology Said's Shakespearean shang shang Lun social stage Su Xiaokang subalterns theatrical theory Third World tion traditional Chinese Univ Wang wenxue West Western modernism Western modernist Wilder Wildman Woman in Manhattan women writers Xiao Yin Xiaokang Xiju Yellow River Zhang Zhao Zhongguo Zhou Zhou Li
Popular passages
Page 6 - Taking the entire globe, if North America and Western Europe can be called "the cities of the world," then Asia, Africa, and Latin America constitute "the rural areas of the world.
Page 6 - In a sense, the contemporary world revolution also presents a picture of the encirclement of cities by the rural areas. In the final analysis, the whole cause of world revolution hinges on the revolutionary struggles of the Asian, African and Latin iVmerican peoples who make up the overwhelming majority of the world's population.
Page 4 - a discursive practice that, by constructing its Western Other, has allowed the Orient to participate actively and with indigenous creativity in the process of self-appropriation, even after being appropriated and constructed by Western others.