Chinese Modernity and Global Biopolitics: Studies in Literature and Visual Culture
Sheldon H. Lu
This ambitious work is a multimedia, interdisciplinary study of Chinese   modernity in the context of globalization from the late nineteenth century   to the present. Sheldon Lu draws on Chinese literature, film, art,   photography, and video to broadly map the emergence of modern China in   relation to the capitalist world-system in the economic, social, and   political realms. Central to his study is the investigation of biopower and   body politics, namely, the experience of globalization on a personal   level.Lu first outlines the trajectory of the body in modern Chinese   literature by focusing on the adventures, pleasures, and sufferings of the   male (and  female) body in the writings of selected authors. He then turns   to avant-garde and performance art, tackling the physical self more   directly through a consideration of work that takes the body as its very   theme, material, and medium. In an exploration of mass visual culture, Lu   analyzes artistic reactions to the multiple, uneven effects of   globalization and modernization on both the physical landscape of China and   the interior psyche of its citizens. This is followed by an investigation   of contemporary Chinese urban space in popular cinema and experimental   photography and art. Examples are offered that capture the daily lives of   contemporary Chinese as they struggle to make the transition from the   vanishing space of the socialist lifestyle to the new capitalist economy of   commodities. Lu reexamines the history and implications of China's belated   integration into the capitalist world system before closing with a   postscript that traces the genealogy of the term "postsocialism" and points   to the real relevance of the idea for the examination of everyday life in   China in the twenty-first century.Rich in detail, comprehensive in   scope, and insightful in its interpretations of a wide variety of sources,   Chinese Modernity and Global Biopolitics makes a significant   contribution to the study of modern China. Its analysis of written and   visual texts and placement of China's modernity against changing global   conditions open up a transnational and postmodern perspective that will   appeal to scholars and others interested in the cultural life of   contemporary China.