This is the first book to explore the history of self-translation in Chinese. It reveals how self-translation was widespread among literary authors during one of the most fertile periods of translation in human history, an era that marks both the dawn of modern Chinese literature and the foundation of the Republic of China (1912–1949). The crucial role translation played in this period remains unknown to a great many readers and researchers in the West, but the book establishes why this is...

The official journal of the Mid-America Theatre ConferenceWhere past and performance converge—scholarship that moves the stage forward.Theatre History Studies (THS) is a peer-reviewed journal of theatre history and scholarship published annually since 1981 by the Mid-America Theatre Conference (MATC), a regional body devoted to theatre scholarship and practice. The conference encompasses the states of Illinois, Iowa, Nebra...

Set during the fall-out of the Cultural Revolution, these bizarre and delicate stories capture the collision of the old China of vanished dynasties, with communism and today's tiger economy.The mad woman on the bridge wears a historical gown which she refuses to take off. In the height of summer she stands madly on the bridge. Until a young female doctor, bewitched by the beauty of the mad woman's dress, plots to take it from her, with tragic consequences.

This book offers a stimulating introduction to the Hokkien music drama known as liyuanxi ('pear garden theatre'), heir and current expression of one of China's oldest unbroken xiqu ('Chinese opera') traditions. It considers the genre's history prior to the 20th century, its signal successes before and after the Cultural Revolution, and its national prominence today. Beginning with an analysis of the form's aesthetics and techniques, it proceeds to an overview of its rich ...

Kunqu, recognized by UNESCO in 2001 as part of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, is among the oldest and most refined traditions of the family of genres known as xiqu (music-drama or “Chinese opera”). Today, the art form’s musical and performance traditions are being passed on by senior artists. This book consists of twelve explanatory narrations in English, selected and translated from among an expansive collective endeavour in Chinese. Each performer narration sheds light on ...

The madwoman was wearing a white velvet cheongsam. Standing on the bridge, she revelled in her own faded splendour. Normal people pay no attention to madwomen, but one woman from Shaoxing stayed on the bridge that afternoon to talk to this one; what was she coveting?Part of the Storycuts series, this short story was previously published in the collection Madwoman on the Bridge.

In late imperial China, opera transmitted ideas across the social hierarchy about the self, family, society, and politics. Beijing attracted a diverse array of opera genres and audiences and, by extension, served as a hub for the diffusion of cultural values.It is in this context that historian Andrea S. Goldman harnesses opera as a lens through which to examine urban cultural history. Her meticulous yet playful account takes up the multiplicity of opera types that proliferated at ...

Women and Gender in Chinese Martial Arts Films of the New Millennium, by Ya-chen Chen, is an excavation of underexposed gender issues focusing mainly on contradictory and troubled feminism in the film narratives. In the cinematic world of martial arts films, one can easily find representations of women of Ancient China released from the constraints of patriarchal social order to revel in a dreamlike space of their own. They can develop themselves, protect themselves, and even defeat or con...

This collection of essays reveals the dynamic role of the late Qing novel in the process of modernization of Chinese fiction. Substantial changes in various aspects of the Chinese novel at the turn of the century, demonstrated by structural analyses of several representative novels, suggest that the evolution of modern Chinese fiction was a more complex process than a simple imitation of Western literatures. The results challenge the scholarly consensus that modern Chinese fiction resulted...

Shorlisted for the BAFTSS 2020 Award for Best MonographDespite his films being subjected to censorship and denigration in his native China, Jia Zhangke has become the country's leading independent film director internationally. Seen as one of world cinema's foremost auteurs, he has played a crucial role in documenting and reflecting upon China's era of intense transformationssince the 1990s.Cecília Mello provides in-depth analysis of Jia's unique body of work, from h...

Adapting Western Classics for the Chinese Stage presents a comprehensive study of transnational, transcultural, and translingual adaptations of Western classics from the turn of the twentieth century to present-day China in the age of globalization. Supported by a wide range of in-depth research, this bookExamines the complex dynamics between texts, both dramatic and socio-historical; contexts, both domestic and international; and intertexts, Western classics and the...

Fok focuses on the ways in which these artists use their own bodies, animals’ bodies and other corporeal substances to represent life and death in performance art, installations, and photography. Over the course of her investigations, corporeality emerges as a common means of highlighting the social and cultural issues that surround these life and death. By assessing its effectiveness in the expression of these themes, Fok ultimately illuminates the extent to which we can see corporeality ...