The making and remaking of China's "red classics"
Subtitle: politics, aesthetics, and mass culture
By: edited by Rosemary Roberts and Li Li
Published: 2017
Language: eng
Number of pages: 199
ISBN-13: 9789888390892
Copyright date: 2017
Subjects: Chinese Arts; Communism and culture; Communism in literature; Communism and art
Description: "The Making and Remaking of China's 'Red Classics' is the first full-length work to bring together research on the 'red classics' across the entire Maoist period through to the reform era. It covers a representative range of genres including novels, short stories, films, TV series, picture books, animation, and traditional-style paintings. Collectively, the chapters offer a panoramic view of the production and reception of the original 'red classics' and the adaptations and remakes of such works after the Cultural Revolution. The contributors present fascinating stories of how a work came to be regarded as, or failed to become, a 'red classic.' There has never been a single answer to the question of what counts as a 'red classic'; artists had to negotiate the changing political circumstances and adopt the correct artistic technique to bring out the authentic image of the people, while appealing to the taste of the mass audience at the same time. A critical examination of these works reveals their sociopolitical and ideological import, aesthetic significance, and function as a mass cultural phenomenon at particular historical moments. This volume marks a step forward in the growing field of the study of Maoist cultural products"--Publisher's description.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: PART I: Creating the Canon : The "Red Classics" in the Maoist Era. The Red Classic That Never Was : Wang Lin's Hinterland / Lianfen Yang (Translated by Ping Qiu and Richard King); title: Great Changes in Critical Reception : "Red Classic" Authenticity and the "Eight Black Theories" / Richard King; title: How to Tell a Story of Imprisonment : Ideology, Truth, and Melodramatic Body in the Making of Red Crag / Li Li; title: How Is Revolution "Popularized"? Rereading Tracks in the Snowy Forest / Yang Li (Translated by Krista Van Fleit Hang); title: Shaping the "Red Classics" of Chinese Art in Early Socialist China : Manipulating Tradition to Establish New Guohua / Kuiyi Shen; title: Castration for the People : The Politics of Revision and the Structure of Violence in Hao Ran's Short Stories / Xiaofei Tian; title: PART II: Making over the Canon : The "Red Classics" in the Reform Era. The Politics and Aesthetics of Rediscovering Heroes of the "Red Classics" in Lianhuanhua of the Reform Era / Rosemary Roberts; title: The Cultural Indigenization of a Soviet "Red Classic" Hero : Pavel Korchagin's Journey through Time and Space / Frederik H. Green; title: The Red Sister-in-Law Remakes : Redefining the "Fish-and-Water" Relationship for the Era of Reform and Opening / Qian Gong; title: Families, Intellectuals, and Enemies in the "Red Classic" Remake New Tunnel Warfare / Lara Vanderstaay.