Full Description
Essays for teaching Chinese film, history, and society
This volume brings a diverse range of voices—from anthropology, communication studies, ethnomusicology, film, history, literature, linguistics, sociology, theater, and urban geography—into the conversation about film from the People's Republic of China. Essays seek to answer what films can reveal or obscure about Chinese history and society and demonstrate how studying films from the PRC can introduce students to larger issues of historical consciousness and media representation.
The volume addresses not only postsocialist fictional films but also a wide variety of other subjects including socialist period films, documentaries, films by or about people from ethnic minority groups, film music, the perspectives of female characters, martial arts cinema, and remakes of South Korean films. By exploring how films represent power, traditions, and ideologies, students learn about both the complexity of the PRC and the importance of cross-cultural and cross-ideological understanding.
This volume contains discussion of Beijing Bicycle; The Big Shot; Cai Chusheng; Chasing the Carp; Jackie Chan; Children at a Village School; Cui Zien; Fan Lixin; Fish and Elephant; Five Golden Flowers; Hero; Ann Hui; Ip Man; Jiang Hu: Life on the Road; Jiang Nengjie; Last Train Home; Li Shuangshuang; Li Yu; Lou Ye; Meishi Street; New Women; 1911; Ou Ning; The Postmodern Life of My Aunt; Queer China, Comrade China; Red Detachment of Women; River Elegy; The Road Home; Shadow Magic; Shower; Soul Haunted by Painting; Su Xiaokang; Suzhou River; To Live; The Wandering Earth; Wang Bing; Wang Luxiang; Wang Xiaoshuai; West of the Tracks; The White-Haired Girl; Wolf Warrior 2; Wu Bai; Wu Jing; Wu Wenguang; Xia Jun; Xie Jin; Yellow Earth; Ying Yunwei; Wilson Yip; Yu Hua; Zhang Li; Zhang Yang; and Zhang Yimou.
Contents
Introduction, by Zhuoyi Wang, Emily Wilcox, and Hongmei Yu
Part I: Pedagogical Methods
A Rhizomatic Approach to Teaching China through Film, by Chenshu Zhou
Navigating Diverse Viewing Positions in the Film Classroom, by Angie Chau
Teaching Ideology through a Controversial Chinese Film: The Case of The Wandering Earth, by Zhuoyi Wang
Part II: Reexamining Revolutionary Narratives
Gender, Class, and Ethnicity in Li Shuangshuang, The White-Haired Girl, and Five Golden Flowers, by Emily Wilcox
Cultural Revolution Films and Their Production History, by Angie C. Baecker
Chinese History and the Cinematic Trio, by Ping Zhu
Not Watching Jackie Chan: Historical Film and Marginal Women, by Marjorie Dryburgh
Part III: Image and Reality of a Changing China
Chinese Documentaries: A Series Approach, by Hongwei Thorn Chen and Aleksander Sedzielarz
Teaching Contemporary China through Documentary, by Jasmine Yu-Hsing Chen, Sydney Pond, and Emma Clawson
Teaching Asian Urbanization through Cinema, by Han Li and Shaolu Yu
Part IV: Recontextualizing National Culture
Yinpeixiang Films in the Theater Classroom, by Josh Stenberg
A Reassessment of the Female Singing Voice in Yellow Earth, by Ho Chak Law
Without a Sword: Zhang Yimou's Hero in the Context of the Wuxia Tradition, by Shirley O. Lua
Part V: Intercultural and Comparative Approaches
A Comparative Approach to Lou Ye's Suzhou River, by Lily Li
From Hainan to Grant Avenue: Teaching Gender Construction as Integration Propaganda in Two Films about Chinese Women, by Vincent Casaregola
Chinese Remakes of South Korean Films, by Elaine Chung
Part VI: Film in Chinese Language Courses
An Integrated Approach to Teaching Chinese Language and Culture through Film, by Jin Liu
Developing Film-Based Teaching Materials for an Advanced Chinese Class, by Jingjing Cai and Su-I Chen
Part VII: Multidisciplinary Approaches
Teaching Chinese Independent Cinema through the Cultural-Diamond Framework, by Seio Nakajima
Phenomenological Approaches to Teaching Chinese Film, by Corey Kai Nelson Schultz
Visualizing Ethnic Minorities in Multicultural China, by Yanshuo Zhang
Notes on Contributors
