Chinese Shakespeares : Two Centuries of Cultural Exchange

For close to two hundred years, the ideas of Shakespeare have inspiredincredible work in the literature, fiction, theater, and cinema of China, Taiwan,and Hong Kong. From the novels of Lao She and Lin Shu to Lu Xun's search for aChinese "Shakespeare," and from Feng Xiaogang's martial arts films to labor campmemoirs, Soviet-Chinese theater, Chinese opera in Europe, and silent film,Shakespeare has been put to work in unexpected places, yielding a rich trove oftransnational imagery and paradoxical citations in popular and political culture.Chinese Shakespeares is the first book toconcentrate on both Shakespearean performance and Shakespeare's appearance inSinophone culture and their ambiguous relationship to the postcolonial question.Substantiated by case studies of major cultural events and texts from the firstOpium War in 1839 to our times, Chinese Shakespeares theorizescompeting visions of "China" and "Shakespeare" in the global cultural marketplaceand challenges the logic of fidelity-based criticism and the myth of culturalexclusivity. In his critique of the locality and ideological investments ofauthenticity in nationalism, modernity, Marxism, and personal identities, Huangreveals the truly transformative power of Chinese Shakespeares.