Hong Kong's protest movements have created a repertoire of symbolism in artworks and artefacts that make statements about the political status of the city. This article analyses the protest art... Show moreHong Kong's protest movements have created a repertoire of symbolism in artworks and artefacts that make statements about the political status of the city. This article analyses the protest art that emerged during the 2019 anti-extradition protests. We explore how actors produced a sense of “Hong Kong-ness” and distributed political meanings through networked agitprop: a form of strategic communication that links people and ideas together in both physical and digital contexts, through emotional appeals in the service of a grassroots political programme. By analysing examples of such agitprop, we show how the movement organically constructed networks of meaning to promote its ideas of people, nation, and even independence. However, we also find that the commitment to nationalist frames of reference ultimately prevents such art from re-imaging Hong Kong outside the confines of nations and that it even inadvertently reproduces the systems of power it ostensibly sets out to challenge. Show less
This dissertation advances a new interpretation on the national formation of modern China through the lens of Chinese cinema. Primarily, this project explores how cinema—a modern invention imported... Show moreThis dissertation advances a new interpretation on the national formation of modern China through the lens of Chinese cinema. Primarily, this project explores how cinema—a modern invention imported from the West—has shaped China’s sociopolitical transition from a dynastic empire to a nation-state. It is argued that, the concurrence of motion picture’s arrival and nation-state’s advent in China at the turn of the twentieth century, is not to be considered as isolated events, but rather as a dialectical dynamism in which the imagined community of modern China has largely relied on cinema for its symbolic construction, and yet encountered constant resistance from cinematic representation. Viewing the formation of the Chinese nation-state from a cinematic perspective, this study centers on the conflicts between marginal figures and central categories in Chinese films. In approaching this unresolved dilemma, Jiyu Zhang dedicates his study to mapping out a dialectical relationship between China’s internal and external tensions. Through an extensive investigation of cinematic embodiment, Zhang hones in on four groups of characters that he terms the “central frontiers” of modern China’s cultural imaginary: children, women, ethnic minorities, and diaspora. Show less
In pursuit of solutions to China’s inter-regional cross-border insolvency cooperation, the doctoral dissertation provides 10 original recommendations accompanied with comments, which are entitled ... Show moreIn pursuit of solutions to China’s inter-regional cross-border insolvency cooperation, the doctoral dissertation provides 10 original recommendations accompanied with comments, which are entitled “CICIA”. Show less
Popular music in Chinese languages both reflects and influences how its audiences perceive themselves and their position in the world around them. This book analyses the role of popular music in... Show morePopular music in Chinese languages both reflects and influences how its audiences perceive themselves and their position in the world around them. This book analyses the role of popular music in identity formation through detailed comparisons of the pop star Faye Wong, the rock band Second Hand Rose and the electrofolk artist Xiao He, in five thematic chapters. Chapter 1, Place, follows the history of popular music through Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taipei and Beijing, concluding that language is defining. Chapter 2, Genre and Classification, argues that genre distinctions, and by extension class identities, are secondary to affiliations along region, gender, generation and marketability. The psycho-analytical approach of chapter 3, Sex, Gender, and Desire, explores how popular music reiterate and challenge stereotypes surrounding the passive beauty, coolness and brotherhood. Chapter 4, Theatricality, argues that theatrical performances negotiate the boundary between stage world and ordinary reality through make-believe and reflectiveness. Finally, chapter 5, Organizing Music, submits that music happens through reproduction, variation and selection, and in constant interaction with ecologies and collectives. In the end, this book itself strives to make these sounds, images and texts available for the incessant, piecemeal work of worldmaking. Show less
