Chinese Popular Culture and the State

The State Question in Chinese Popular Culturepresents a series of groundbreaking essays that challenge the paradigm dividing Chinese culture into "official" and "unofficial" categories. This binary, which mirrors the "high/low" dichotomy familiar to all practitioners of cultural studies, finds its roots in Cold-War Western romanticization of a Chinese popular culture that stood in defiant opposition to the Communist state. This special issue disputes such simplistic representations and offers new critical trajectories crucial to the study of contemporary Chinese popular culture.Contributors.Tani E. Barlow, Dai Jinhua, Judith Farquhar, David S. G. Goodman, James L. Hevia, Li Hsiaoti, Ralph Litzinger, Eric Kit-Wa Ma, Jonathan Scott Noble, Jing Wang

Contributors. Tani E. Barlow, Dai Jinhua, Judith Farquhar, David S. G. Goodman, James L. Hevia, Li Hsiao-t'i, Ralph Litzinger, Eric Kit-Wa Ma, Jonathan Scott Noble, Jing WangTable of ContentsA Critical Introduction: The Chinese "Popular": Agendas and Methodologies / Jing WangMaking a Name and a Culture for the Masses in Modern China / Li Hsiao-t'i"Culture" as Leisure and "Culture" as Capital / Jing WangFor Your Reading Pleasure: Self-Health (Ziwo baojian) Information in 1990s Beijing / Judith FarquharRe-Advertising Hong Kong: Nostalgia Industry and Popular History / Eric Kit-Wai MaBehind Global Spectacle and National Image-Making / Dat JinhuaA Poetics and Politics of Possession: Taiwanese Spirit-Medium Cults and Autonomous Popular Cultural Space / Peter NickersonWorld Heritage, National Culture, and the Restoration of Chengde / James L. HeviaCommentariesContending the "Popular": Party-State and Culture / David S. G. GoodmanGovernment from Below: The State, the Popular, and the Illusion of Autonomy / Ralph LitzingerWhat is Wanting? / Tani E. Barlow