This book is about how the representations of romantic love in television reflect the change and the dilemma of the dominant values in post-socialist Chinese mainstream culture. These values mainly center on the impact of individualism, consumerism, capitalism, and neoliberalism, often referred to as western culture, on the perception of romantic love and self-realization in China. The book focuses on how romantic love, which plays a vital role in China’s ideologically highly restricted social environment by empowering people with individual choice, change, and social mobility, must struggle and compromise with the reality, specifically the values and problems emerging in a transitional China. The book also examines how the representation of romantic love celebrates ideals—individual freedom, passion, and gender equality—and promises changes based on individual diligence and talent while simultaneously obstructing the fulfillment of these ideals.

This book is about how the representations of romantic love in television reflect the change and the dilemma of the dominant values in post-socialist Chinese mainstream culture. These values mainly center on the impact of individualism, consumerism, capitalism, and neoliberalism, often referred to as western culture, on the perception of romantic love and self-realization in China. The book focuses on how romantic love, which plays a vital role in China’s ideologically highly restricted social environment by empowering people with individual choice, change, and social mobility, must struggle and compromise with the reality, specifically the values and problems emerging in a transitional China. The book also examines how the representation of romantic love celebrates ideals—individual freedom, passion, and gender equality—and promises changes based on individual diligence and talent while simultaneously obstructing the fulfillment of these ideals.

This book traces the cultural transformation of nostalgia on the Chinese screen over the past three decades. It explores how filmmakers from different generations have engaged politically with China’s rapidly changing post-socialist society as it has been formed through three mutually constitutive frameworks: political discourse, popular culture and state-led media commercialisation. The book offers a new, critical model for understanding relationships between filmmakers, industry and the State.

The Routledge Companion to Romantic Love is a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary reference work essential for students and researchers interested in the field of love, romance and popular romance fiction. This first-of-its-kind volume illustrates the broad and interdisciplinary nature of love studies. International contributors, including leaders in their field, reflect a range of perspectives from cultural studies, history, literature, popular romance studies, American studies, sociology and gender studies. Comprising over 30 chapters by a team of international contributors the Companion is divided into 12 parts: Love, romance and historical and social change Love and feminist discourses Love and popular romance fiction Love, gender and sexuality Romancing Australia South and Southeast Asian romance communities Nation, place and identity in US popular romance novels Romantic love and national identity in Chinese and Taiwanese discourses of love Muslim and Middle Eastern romances Discourses of romance fiction and technologies of power Writing love and romance Legal and theological fiction and sexual politics This is an important and unique collection aimed at researchers and students across cultural studies, women and gender studies, literature studies and sociology.

This book explores how political, economic, social, cultural and technological forces are (re)shaping the meanings of love and intimacy in China's public culture. It focuses on a range of cultural and media forms including literature, film, television, music and new media, examines new cultural practices such as online activism, virtual intimacy and relationship counselling, and discusses how far love and romance have come to assume new shapes and forms in the twenty-first century. Love Stories in China offers deep insights into how the huge transformation of China over the last four decades has impacted the micro lives of ordinary Chinese people.

This book considers the changing nature of intimacy in contemporary China, providing a unique case study of romantic subjectivities in young people in the world’s fastest growing economy. Since the implementation of reform in 1978, the economic and socio-cultural environment of modern China has experienced a dramatic transformation under the influence of urbanization and globalization, facilitating more individualized identity among Chinese youth. This book bridges the gap between an emergent emphasis on individualisation and the country’s traditional norms and values. It focuses on young people’s understandings of various forms of relationships such as cohabitation, extramarital relationships and multiple relationships, suggesting a challenge to traditional familial values and an increasingly diversified understanding of the concepts of love and romance. By examining the formation of relationships among 21st century Chinese youth, notably through the lens of popular Chinese TV dating programs, this book considers how dating and relationships mirror China’s changing societal structure and examines social and cultural transformations in Chinese society.

This unique book investigates the tug-of-war between the free market economy and authoritative state regulation in Chinese culture after 1989. Contextualizing close textual readings of cinematic and television texts, both officially sanctioned and independently made, Wing Shan Ho illuminates the complex process in which cultural producers and consumers negotiate with both the state and the market in articulating new forms of subjectivity. Ho examines the types of Chinese subjects that the state applauds and aggrandizes in contrast to those that it condemns and attempts to eliminate. Her focus on the socialist spirit exposes inherent contradictions in the current Chinese project of nation-building. This comparative study shines a harsh light on these cultural products and on much more: the confluence between commerce and politics and popular culture, the interaction between state and individuals in popular culture, and the complexity of governmentality in an era of globalization.