Yiman Wang - Böcker

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more.Between 1919 and 1961, pioneering Chinese American actress Anna May Wong established an enduring legacy that encompassed cinema, theater, radio, and American television. Born in Los Angeles, yet with her US citizenship scrutinized due to the Chinese Exclusion Act, Wong—a defiant misfit—innovated nuanced performances to subvert the racism and sexism that beset her life and career. In this critical study of Wong's cross-media and transnational career, Yiman Wang marshals extraordinary archival research and a multifocal approach to illuminate a lifelong labor of performance. Viewing Wong as a performer and worker, not just a star, To Be an Actress adopts a feminist decolonial perspective to speculatively meet her as an interlocutor while inviting a reconsideration of racialized, gendered, and migratory labor as the bedrock of the entertainment industries.

Chinese Animation: Multiplicities in Motion is the first edited volume that explores the multiple histories, geographies, industries, technologies, media, and transmedialities of Chinese animation, from early animated special effects to socialist classics, from computer-generated-imagery (CGI) blockbusters to edgy independent films, and from stop-motion to virtual reality. Its fifteen chapters, grouped under the five themes of junctures, gender, identities, digitality, and practices, span a century of animation since the 1920s across mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, and the diasporic world. Derived from the 2021 Inaugural Conference of the Association for Chinese Animation Studies (ACAS), this volume as a whole defines Chinese animation studies as a new field of research emerging from the peripheries of modern Chinese literature and film studies on the one hand, and from the margins of Western and Japanese animation studies on the other. Incorporating diverse academic approaches and perspectives, this groundbreaking book is an indispensable guide for a rapidly growing community of scholars, students, animators, fans, and general readers interested in Chinese and world animation.

Honourable Mention, Best Monograph Award, BAFTSS Publication Awards 2022Sheldon Lu's wide-ranging new book investigates how filmmakers and visual artists from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan have envisioned China as it transitions from a socialist to a globalized capitalist state. It examines how the modern nation has been refashioned and re-imagined in order to keep pace with globalization and transnationalism. At the heart of Lu’s analysis is a double movement in the relationship between nation and transnationalism in the Chinese post-socialist state. He considers the complexity of how the Chinese economy is integrated in the global capitalist system while also remaining a repressive body politic with mechanisms of control and surveillance. He explores the interrelations of the local, the national, the subnational, and the global as China repositions itself in the world. Lu considers examples from feature and documentary film, mainstream and marginal cinema, and a variety of visual arts: photography, painting, digital video, architecture, and installation. His close case studies include representations of class, masculinity and sexuality in contemporary Taiwanese and Chinese cinema; the figure of the sex worker as a symbol of modernity and mobility; and artists' representations of Beijing at the time of the 2008 Olympics.

Contemporary Art Cinema Culture in China explores the dynamic networks of art cinema in China in the 21st century, highlighting the cultural practices of intermediaries such as independent programmers, internet critics, and fan translators.Offering insights gleaned from original ethnographic research, Xiang Fan reveals how these intermediary practitioners think about cinema, negotiate judgement and appreciation, construct a discourse of value and taste, and most importantly, constitute a coordinated and interrelated network for the sharing of art cinema. Fan argues that although their motivation was derived from a cinephilia seeking to forge an alternative mode of distribution and reception, the ‘new’ cinema culture they have produced simultaneously negotiates a subtly complicit relationship with authoritative and market forces. In doing so, she offers an original interdisciplinary perspective on contemporary art cinema culture in Chinese society.

Contemporary Art Cinema Culture in China explores the dynamic networks of art cinema in China in the 21st century, highlighting the cultural practices of intermediaries such as independent programmers, internet critics, and fan translators.Offering insights gleaned from original ethnographic research, Xiang Fan reveals how these intermediary practitioners think about cinema, negotiate judgement and appreciation, construct a discourse of value and taste, and most importantly, constitute a coordinated and interrelated network for the sharing of art cinema. Fan argues that although their motivation was derived from a cinephilia seeking to forge an alternative mode of distribution and reception, the ‘new’ cinema culture they have produced simultaneously negotiates a subtly complicit relationship with authoritative and market forces. In doing so, she offers an original interdisciplinary perspective on contemporary art cinema culture in Chinese society.

This study examines the production of popular Chinese reality television, complemented by interviews with a broad range of practitioners including newcomers, contractors, and migrant workers, all of whom form the industry's backbone.Tianyu Zhang draws on first hand experiences across six television productions, providing exclusive insights into institutional dynamics and interpersonal relationships. She examines popular television series like Win the Bill (2013-) and Waiting For Me (2014-), uncovering concealed narratives of precarious production that shape Chinese television.She goes on to examine regulations impacting the broader labour market, including unsupportive national policies, social welfare systems, unhealthy work values, and the absence of trade unions, considering how these impact the television industry. Spanning a spectrum of media landscapes, from state-owned giants like China Central Television (CCTV) to provincial outlets and independent production houses, this comprehensive study captures the essence of Chinese reality TV production.