Gladys Pak Lei Chong – författare

This rich collection of essays offers a multi- and inter-disciplinary discussion of "trans-Asia" approaches from critical theory, historical studies, cultural studies to film studies. In doing so the authors lay down the groundwork for a more inclusive knowledge-production and fruitful transnational collaboration. The authors engage with the implications of “trans-Asia” using a range of empirical cases. At the heart of the book is a desire and attempt to give a grounded understanding of what “trans-Asia” approaches are by examining human mobilities, media culture flows and connections across Asia and beyond in four key aspects: cross-border flows and connections; inter-Asian comparison and referencing; transnational and de-nationalized approaches; and cross-border collaboration.

Challenges to Silicon Valley’s dominant role in conjuring and patenting the world’s technological futures are arising around the world. As digital media technologies emerge from new, globally dispersed locations, a multipolar order of communication innovation seems to be in the making. Yet recovering our ability to imagine futures otherwise requires negotiating conditions—economic, geopolitical, sociocultural, and ecological—rather than reproducing them under the pretext of breaking with the present. The essays in this volume examine research on such conditions critically and comparatively in a variety of geographies. Paying due attention to China’s rise as an innovative platform society and AI powerhouse, this book addresses the broader question of a shifting world order and trends that are shaped by China’s influence but that extend beyond its borders. Looking at multipolar communication innovation through various critical lenses, our technological futures simultaneously appear to be old, new, and uncertain, while the infrastructures and platforms underpinning communication innovation both affiliate communities and set them apart.

Chinese Subjectivities and the Beijing Olympics develops the Foucauldian concept of productive power through examining the ways in which the Chinese government tried to mobilize the population to embrace its Olympic project through deploying various sets of strategies and tactics. It argues that the multifaceted strategies, tactics, and discourses deployed by the Chinese authorities sustain an order of things and values in such a way that drive individuals to commit themselves actively to the goals of the party-state. The book examines how these processes of subjectification are achieved by zooming in on five specific groups of the population: athletes, young Olympic volunteers, taxi drivers, Chinese citizens targeted by place-making projects, and the Hong Kong population. In doing so it probes critically into the role of individuals and how they take on the governmental ideas to become responsible autonomous subjects.

Chinese Subjectivities and the Beijing Olympics develops the Foucauldian concept of productive power through examining the ways in which the Chinese government tried to mobilize the population to embrace its Olympic project through deploying various sets of strategies and tactics. It argues that the multifaceted strategies, tactics, and discourses deployed by the Chinese authorities sustain an order of things and values in such a way that drive individuals to commit themselves actively to the goals of the party-state. The book examines how these processes of subjectification are achieved by zooming in on five specific groups of the population: athletes, young Olympic volunteers, taxi drivers, Chinese citizens targeted by place-making projects, and the Hong Kong population. In doing so it probes critically into the role of individuals and how they take on the governmental ideas to become responsible autonomous subjects.