The Politics of Ruins and Everyday Life: Studies of Chinese Urban Texts in the 2000s

Dr Yee, Winnie Lai Man   (Principal Investigator (PI))

Professor Chu Yiu Wai Stephen   (Co-Investigator)

30

2017-08-01

247000

The Politics of Ruins and Everyday Life: Studies of Chinese Urban Texts in the 2000s

Chinese Independent Cinema, Chinese Literature, Ecocriticism, Theories of Everyday Life, Urban Culture

Area Studies (including Japanese Studies, China Studies, European Studies)

Humanities & Social Sciences (H)

17616817

General Research Fund (GRF)

2017

Completed

1 An examination of the tendency to challenge the urban context in literary and filmic texts written and produced in the 2000s, which adopt an ecocritical theoretical framework to highlight the intricate relationship between the human and non-human. 2 A study of how the mutation of urban and rural landscapes is used to convey not only the perpetual cycle of demolition and construction but also the destruction of hope within the nation. 3 A discussion of the relationship between rural and urban landscapes, and the way that the former is reimagined by portraying new relationships with land, water, animals and other entities that have been transformed by China’s current market economy. 4 An expansion of the scope of the field of literary and film studies by including the spheres of everyday life, the renewed relationship with the non-human world, and urban culture. 5 An examination of the significance of ecological reflections and a focus on the quotidian in dealing with transformations of post-socialist China. 6 A contribution to the established field of ecocriticism in the West, which demonstrates the power of this type of criticism to illuminate a variety of texts across cultures.