Folklore Fieldwork the first book to present systematic research based on the author’s more than 20 years of fieldwork in urban and rural areas throughout China. It addresses the theory and methodology of Chinese folkloristics, highlighting the unique characteristics of Chinese culture and society in the process, and explores the core process of modern Chinese folkloristics, making the field accessible to an international audience.

Mandarin, Guoyu or Putonghua? 'Chinese' is a language known by many names, and China is a country home to many languages. Since the turn of the twentieth century linguists and politicians have been on a mission to create a common language for China. From the radical intellectuals of the May Fourth Movement, to leaders such as Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong, all fought linguistic wars to push the boundaries of language reform. Now, Internet users take the Chinese language in new and unpredi...

Few countries have been so transformed in recent decades as China. With a dynamically growing economy and a rapidly changing social structure, China challenges the West to understand the nature of its modernization. Using postmodernism as both a global frame of periodization and a way to break free from the rigid ideology of westernization as modernity, this volume’s diverse group of contributors argues that the Chinese experience is crucial for understanding postmodernism.Collectiv...

This is an open access book. International Science and Culture Center for Academic Contacts (ISCCAC) is pleased to announce The 3rd International Conference on Language, Communication and Culture Studies (ICLCCS 2022).The conference was held on August 12-13, 2022. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the conference was held in on-line format.ICLCCS 2022 covers a number of problems, such as: prospects for the development of linguistics, modern approaches and topical issues of teach...

This is an open access book.The aim of the Conference is to provide a shared platform for academics, scholars, PhD students, and graduate students with different cultural backgrounds to present and discuss research, developments and innovations in the fields of contemporary education, social sciences and humanities are referred with the understanding of the Human being.Papers concerning education, philosophy, philosophical anthropology, sociology, theory and history of cult...

An elaborate and pervasive set of practices, called guanxi, underlies everyday social relationships in contemporary China. Obtaining and changing job assignments, buying certain foods and consumer items, getting into good hospitals, buying train tickets, obtaining housing, even doing business—all such tasks call for the skillful and strategic giving of gifts and cultivating of obligation, indebtedness, and reciprocity.Mayfair Mei-hui Yang's close scrutiny of this phenomenon serves ...

Chinese folklorists are well acquainted with the work of their English-language colleagues, but until recently the same could not be said about American scholars' knowledge of Chinese folkloristics. Chinese Folklore Studies Today aims to address this knowledge gap by illustrating the dynamics of contemporary folklore studies in China as seen through the eyes of the up-and-coming generation of scholars. Contributors to this volume focuses on topics that have long been the dominant ...

This book approaches the subject of contemporary art by exploring the social embeddedness and identities of Singaporean artists. Linking artistic processes and production to both personal worlds and wider issues, the book examines how artists negotiate their relationships between self and society and between artistic freedom and social responsibility. It is based on original research into the discourses and artistic practices of local artists, with a special focus on emerging artists and a...

Verse Going Viral examines what happens when poetry, a central pillar of traditional Chinese culture, encounters an era of digital media and unabashed consumerism in the early twenty-first century. Heather Inwood sets out to unravel a paradox surrounding modern Chinese poetry: while poetry as a representation of high culture is widely assumed to be marginalized to the point of “death,” poetry activity flourishes across the country, benefiting from China’s continued self-identity a...

From Oracle Bones to Computers not only provides a succinct yet in-depth account of the development of writing technologies in the five thousand years of China's history but also develops an operationalized model of rhetorical analysis that can be applied to the study of any writing technology development.

As the first volume of a two-volume set that examines the interaction between social transformation and visual culture in contemporary China, this book explores the visual construction of popular culture, avant-garde art, and grassroots media culture.Drawing on an approach of Marxist historic materialism and academic resources of sociology, communication, and art, this study of contemporary China’s visual culture emphasizes two inter-related aspects – the visual construction of soc...

Since the late 1970s, China’s move towards neoliberalism has made it not only one of the world’s fastest growing economies, but also one of the most polarised states. This economic, social and political transformation has led to the emergence of a new Chinese middle class, and understanding the development and the role of this new social group is crucial to understanding contemporary Chinese society.Investigating the new politics of the middle class in China, this book addresses th...