Literature and Modern China: Vol. 3 No. 1 (2024): Chinese Science Fiction: Guest Edited by Song Mingwei

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Mother, Desire and Oppression
Reading Chinese Modernization in Han Song’s Tuomu

By: Yimin Xu, University of New South Wales

In this paper, I analyse the theme of mother-son incest in a contemporary Chinese science fiction story “Cutting Ties with Mothers (Tuomu)” by Han Song (b. 1965), one of the giants of contemporary Chinese science fiction. With a gendered perspective, I decode implications behind the mother-son incest in the story. I argue this theme serves as a gender metaphor to delineate the power contestation between a male self and a feminized Chinese state. It also sheds light on a male individual’s mental dilemma in contemporary Chinese modernization.

 

The Struggle for Subsistence
City-based Migrant Couples in Jing Yongming’s Fiction

By Shuang Liu, Leiden University

With China’s rapid modernization and urbanization in the 1980s, hundreds of millions of farmers have flocked from the countryside to the cities in search of jobs. They are internal migrant workers. Since rural-to-urban migrants are mainly young and middle-aged laborers, their ‘family’ in the cities is often limited to two adults living as a couple, with both partners working. This paper will focus on the literary representation of such couples, further discussing the urban survival of migrant workers and their complex relationship with the city.

 

Kexue Xiaoshuo
Science Fiction in the Contact Zone

By: Yizhi Xiao, Shanghai International Studies University

This article advocates reading kexue xiaoshuo (science novels) as a contact genre embodying a unique subjectivity emerging out of late Qing China’s interactions with the world. Taking its cue from Mary Louise Pratt’s (1948- ) concept of the ‘contact zone,’ this article adopts a contact approach to recount kexue xiaoshuo’s genesis by underscoring an unlikely combination of science and fantasy as interaction and improvisation found in the contact zone. Extrapolating from fictional texts such as New Story of the Stone to the shifting epistemological landscape in late Qing reading culture, this article presents kexue xiaoshuo as a cultural formation like Pidgin English, which records traces of contention between autochthonous and Western intellectual traditions.

 

Posthuman in Han Song’s Science Fiction
The Conflict and Negotiation between the Individual and the System

By: Yan Dong, University of Arizona

This paper examines the posthuman in Han Song’s science fiction. It argues that ‘posthuman’ here not merely refers to physically transformed human beings, but signifies also a group of people unable to demonstrate the attribute of individuality. Based on a study of Han Song’s Ditie (Subway) (2010), Gaotie (High-speed Railway) (2012), and Hongse haiyang (Red Ocean) (2004), this paper demonstrates how Han Song conjoins humanism, the nation-state, and scientism to consider the posthuman era as an inevitable civilizational stage.

 

 

Description

Literature and Modern China 《文學與現代中國》(LMC) is an open-access, international, peer-reviewed journal devoted to all aspects of Chinese literature and literary culture from roughly 1840 to contemporary times. Its mission is to serve as a bridge between the Chinese-speaking and English-speaking worlds of Chinese literature and literary study. It is sponsored and supported by Sichuan University’s College of Literature and Journalism. Printing and publishing services are provided by Igneus Press.

The journal focuses on Chinese literature and culture of the modern and contemporary periods. It is open to all academic approaches to theese topics—including history, criticism, literary theory, translation studies, etc.—and all theoretical perspectives. We welcome work from scholars, critics, translators, graduate students, authors, and all other knowledgeable individuals. If you are interested in submitting an article for consideration, please visit our submissions page. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the managing editor.