What do Chinese literature and film inspired by the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) have in common with media of the May Fourth movement (1918–1930)? This book demonstrates several shared aims: to liberate narrative arts from aesthetic orthodoxies, to draw on foreign sources for inspiration, and to free individuals from social conformity.

What do the Chinese literature and film inspired by the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) have in common with the Chinese literature and film of the May Fourth movement (1918-1930)? This new book demonstrates that these two periods of the highest literary and cinematic creativity in twentieth-century China share several aims: to liberate these narrative arts from previous aesthetic orthodoxies, to draw on foreign sources for inspiration, and to free individuals from social conformity. Although these consistencies seem readily apparent, with a sharper focus the distinguished contributors to this volume reveal that in many ways discontinuity, not continuity, prevails. Their analysis illuminates the powerful meeting place of language, imagery, and narrative with politics, history, and ideology in twentieth-century China. Drawing on a wide range of methodologies, from formal analysis to feminist criticism, from deconstruction to cultural critique, the authors demonstrate that the scholarship of modern Chinese literature and film has become integral to contemporary critical discourse. They respond to Eurocentric theories, but their ultimate concern is literature and film in China's unique historical context. The volume illustrates three general issues preoccupying this century's scholars: the conflict of the rural search for roots and the native soil movement versus the new strains of urban exoticism; the diacritics of voice, narrative mode, and intertextuality; and the reintroduction of issues surrounding gender and subjectivity. Table of Contents: Preface Acknowledgments Introduction David Der-wei Wang part:1 Country and City 1. Visitation of the Past in Han Shaogong's Post-1985 Fiction Joseph S. M. Lau 2. Past, Present, and Future in Mo Yan's Fiction of the 1980s Michael S. Duke 3. Shen Congwen's Legacy in Chinese Literature of the 1980s Jeffrey C. Kinkley 4. Imaginary Nostalgia: Shen Congwen, Song Zelai, Mo Yan, and Li Yongping David Der-wei Wang 5. Urban Exoticism in Modern and Contemporary Chinese Literature Heinrich Fruehauf part: 2 Subjectivity and Gender 6. Text, Intertext, and the Representation of the Writing Self in Lu Yun, Dafu,and Wang Meng Yi-tsi Mei Feuerwerker 7. Invention and Intervention: The Making of a Female Tradition in Modern Chinese Literature Lydia H. Liu 8. Living in Sin: From May Fourth via the Antirightist Movement to the Present Margaret H. Decker part: 3 Narrative Voice and Cinematic Vision 9. Lu Xun's Facetious Muse: The Creative Imperative in Modern Chinese Fiction Marston Anderson 10. Lives in Profile: On the Authorial Voice in Modern and Contemporary Chinese Literature Theodore Huters 11. Melodramatic Representation and the "May Fourth" Tradition of Chinese Cinema Paul G. Pickowicz 12. Male Narcissism and National Culture: Subjectivity in Chen Kaige's King of the Children Rey Chow Afterword: Reflections on Change and Continuity in Modern Chinese Fiction Leo Ou-fan Lee Notes Contributors From May Fourth to June Fourth will he warmly welcomed. It should be of great interest to all concerned with literary developments in the contemporary world on the one hand, and on the other with the enigmas surrounding China's alternating attempts to develop and to destroy herself as a civilization. --Cyril Birch, University of California, Berkeley

In this vivid new social history of the Tiananmen protests, Beijing massacre, and nationwide crackdown of 1989, Jeremy Brown explores the key turning points of the crisis in China and shows how the massacre and its aftermath were far from inevitable.

One of the most creative and brilliant episodes in modern Chinese history, the cultural and literary flowering that takes the name of the May Fourth Movement, is the subject of this comprehensive and insightful book. This is the first study of modern Chinese literature that shows how China's Confucian traditions were combined with Western influences to create a literature of new values and consciousness for the Chinese people.

There are few major events in modern Chinese history so controversial, so much discussed, yet so inadequately treated as the May Fourth Movement. For some Chinese it marks a national renaissance or liberation, for others a national catastrophe. Among those who discuss or celebrate it most, views vary greatly. Every May for the last forty years, numerous articles have analyzed and commented on the movement. Several books devoted entirely to the subject and hundreds touching on it have been published in Chinese. The literature on the subject is massive, yet most of it offers more polemic than factual accounts. Most Westerners possess but fragmentary and inaccurate information on the subject. For these reasons, preparation of this volume recounting the events of the movement and examining in detail its currents and effects has seemed to me worthwhile.

"For much of the twentieth century, the May Fourth movement of 1919 was seen as the foundational moment of modernity in China. Recent examinations of literary and cultural modernity in China have, however, led to a questioning of this view. By approaching May Fourth from novel perspectives, the authors of the eight studies in this volume seek to contribute to the ongoing critique of the movement. The essays are centered on the intellectual and cultural/historical motivations and practices behind May Fourth discourse and highlight issues such as strategies of discourse formation, scholarly methodologies, rhetorical dispositions, the manipulation of historical sources, and the construction of modernity by means of the reification of China’s literary past."

It is widely accepted, both inside China and in the West, that contemporary Chinese history begins with the May Fourth Movement. Vera Schwarcz's imaginative new study provides China scholars and historians with an analysis of what makes that event a turning point in the intellectual, spiritual, cultural and political life of twentieth-century China.