Kwai-Cheung Lo – författare

Jackie Chan's high-flying stunts, giant pandas, and even the unintentionally hilarious English subtitles that often accompany Hong Kong's films are among the many targets of Kwai-Cheung Lo's in-depth study of Hong Kong popular culture.  Drawing on current concepts of globalization as well as the theories of Jacques Lacan and Slavoj Zizek, Chinese Face/Off explores the way in which fantasy operates in relation to ethnic and national identity. The book offers a critical perspective for approaching the question of cultural otherness by problematizing what it means to be Chinese and explaining how Hong Kong popular culture serves as an imaginary screen for its many compatriots seeking to understand what it means to be "Chinese" in a global age. Examining topics including film, newspaper culture, theme parks, and kung-fu comics as well as the interaction of the Hong Kong film industry with Hollywood, Lo uncovers Hong Kong's importantly "transnational" identity defined in terms of complex relationships with mainland China, other diasporic communities (like Taiwan), and the West.

Ethnic Minority Cinema in China’s Nation-State Building investigates the relationship between cinematic productions about non-Han ethnic minorities and China’s nation-state building project from the early Republican era of the 1920s to the current authoritarian regime in the twenty-first century. Kwai-Cheung Lo argues that the glossy, but superficial, cinematic depictions of non-Han ethnic minorities manufactured and manipulated by state authorities have deeply penetrated the Chinese public’s conception of what an ideal multiethnic nation should be like as well as what it means to be Chinese under political unification. Lo understands these representations of ethnic minorities as part of a larger ecosystem and the cultures, values, and life practices of non-Han ethnic minorities as closely entwined with environmental issues and politics. This intertwining, Lo argues, suggests a crisis in “objectification and identification” of both people and the environment, that plays out in cinema featuring ethnic minorities. Lo traces these depictions of Chinese ethnic minority groups in films created by both Han-majority and non-Han filmmakers, examining how these representations became a site in which state authorities, Han and non-Han communities, and foreign agencies compete and interact under the larger context of building and imagining the Chinese nation-state.

Ethnic Minority Cinema in China’s Nation-State Building investigates the relationship between cinematic productions about non-Han ethnic minorities and China’s nation-state building project from the early Republican era of the 1920s to the current authoritarian regime in the twenty-first century. Kwai-Cheung Lo argues that the glossy, but superficial, cinematic depictions of non-Han ethnic minorities manufactured and manipulated by state authorities have deeply penetrated the Chinese public’s conception of what an ideal multiethnic nation should be like as well as what it means to be Chinese under political unification. Lo understands these representations of ethnic minorities as part of a larger ecosystem and the cultures, values, and life practices of non-Han ethnic minorities as closely entwined with environmental issues and politics. This intertwining, Lo argues, suggests a crisis in “objectification and identification” of both people and the environment, that plays out in cinema featuring ethnic minorities. Lo traces these depictions of Chinese ethnic minority groups in films created by both Han-majority and non-Han filmmakers, examining how these representations became a site in which state authorities, Han and non-Han communities, and foreign agencies compete and interact under the larger context of building and imagining the Chinese nation-state.

This book examines China’s role and its cultural productions in the process of environmental destruction and transformation, focusing on how various cultural media play a significant role in shaping and reproducing Chinese subject formation in relation to changing ecological conditions. It argues that China under the leadership of Xi Jinping vowed in 2017 to play a leading role in preserving the planet for the future, but many of its actions such as its “Belt and Road” initiative have aroused apprehension rather than inspired confidence. Against this backdrop of environmental concern, this volume brings together a cutting-edge critical analysis of Chinese literature, music and cinema, offering a transdisciplinary and comprehensive vision of Chinese arts and literature under the current conditions of the Anthropocene. This volume sets a high scholarly standard in the field, and constitutes a valuable reference for scholars and students of Chinese cultural studies, Chinese studies and Anthropocene studies. ​

This book examines China’s role and its cultural productions in the process of environmental destruction and transformation, focusing on how various cultural media play a significant role in shaping and reproducing Chinese subject formation in relation to changing ecological conditions. It argues that China under the leadership of Xi Jinping vowed in 2017 to play a leading role in preserving the planet for the future, but many of its actions such as its “Belt and Road” initiative have aroused apprehension rather than inspired confidence. Against this backdrop of environmental concern, this volume brings together a cutting-edge critical analysis of Chinese literature, music and cinema, offering a transdisciplinary and comprehensive vision of Chinese arts and literature under the current conditions of the Anthropocene. This volume sets a high scholarly standard in the field, and constitutes a valuable reference for scholars and students of Chinese cultural studies, Chinese studies and Anthropocene studies.

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Innovative analysis of the relationship of gender to East Asian economic development.In Excess and Masculinity in Asian Cultural Productions, Kwai-Cheung Lo explores the excesses associated with the phenomenal economic growth in East Asia, including surplus capital, environmental waste, and the unbalanced ratio of men to women in the region, connecting the production of capitalist "excess" to the production of new forms of transnational Asian masculinity. Lo draws on Lacanian psychoanalysis and Marxist ideas as well as gender theory in his examination of East Asian cultural products such as religious and parenting books, transgender literary fantasies, travel writing, gangster movies, female action heroes, and online games. Through this analysis, Lo argues that the excess of Asia's "masculine" modernization throws into relief the internal inconsistencies of capitalism itself, posing new challenges to the order of global capitalism and suggesting new possible configurations of global modernity.

Innovative analysis of the relationship of gender to East Asian economic development.In Excess and Masculinity in Asian Cultural Productions, Kwai-Cheung Lo explores the excesses associated with the phenomenal economic growth in East Asia, including surplus capital, environmental waste, and the unbalanced ratio of men to women in the region, connecting the production of capitalist "excess" to the production of new forms of transnational Asian masculinity. Lo draws on Lacanian psychoanalysis and Marxist ideas as well as gender theory in his examination of East Asian cultural products such as religious and parenting books, transgender literary fantasies, travel writing, gangster movies, female action heroes, and online games. Through this analysis, Lo argues that the excess of Asia's "masculine" modernization throws into relief the internal inconsistencies of capitalism itself, posing new challenges to the order of global capitalism and suggesting new possible configurations of global modernity.