"This comprehensive book charts the multifarious ways in which China-centric futurologies—the promises of the China dream based on rising Chinese power and wealth—are challenged by writers and artists across the Sinophone world. They do so by imagining and constructing critical Sinophone utopias, even as they must work with the dystopic and ruinous realities on the ground. Sinophone Utopias is an important and timely book." —Shu-mei Shih, Irving and Jean Stone Chair in the Humanities, UCLA

"A cornucopia of interpretative insights based on abundant sources, this impressive collection prompts a fundamental rethinking of Chinese discourses, fictional and historical. Be they about philosophy, literature, architecture, film, new media, political activism, the performing arts, academic debate, and other realms of knowledge production, such discourses can now be understood as variants of an inexhaustible series of engagements with utopia in thought and practice. This stimulating tome will appeal to all those invested in the study of China and in the generative agency of hope." —Rey Chow, Andrew W. Mellon Distinguished Professor of the Humanities, Duke University

"Engaging an important topic in the emergent field of Chinese and Sinophone utopianisms, this book brings together essays that effectively explore how various kinds of 'existential utopias' are configured. Readers are inspired to (re)consider the validity of existing theories related to utopia as a theoretical framework for analyzing the contributing factors to explorations of the future. Having raised timely issues and defined related problems in a very useful manner, this conceptual project is of interest to readers from different disciplines." —Yiu-Wai Chu, Professor and Director of Hong Kong Studies Programme, The University of Hong Kong

Daria Berg (DPhil, University of Oxford) is Chair Professor of Chinese Culture and Society at the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, and Head of the Centre for Intercultural Competence at the St. Gallen Institute of Management in Asia SGI-HSG in Singapore.

William A. Callahan (PhD, University of Hawaii) is Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Kiu-wai Chu (PhD, University of Hong Kong) is Assistant Professor of Environmental Humanities and Chinese Studies at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Yunxia Chu (PhD, Beijing Normal University) is Associate Professor of Chinese Literature at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing.

Qian Cui (PhD, University of Zurich) is Lecturer of Modern Chinese Language, Literature, and Culture at the Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies, University of Zurich.

Jessica Imbach (PhD, University of Zurich) is Senior Lecturer in Chinese Studies at the Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies, University of Zurich.

Paola Iovene (PhD, Cornell University) is Associate Professor of Modern Chinese Literature in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago.

Justyna Jaguscik (PhD, University of Zurich) is Senior Lecturer in Chinese Language, Culture and Society at the University of Bern.

Joanna Krenz (PhD, Leiden University) is Assistant Professor of Modern Chinese Language and Literature at the Institute of Oriental Studies, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland.

Wendy Larson (PhD, University of California, Berkeley) is Professor Emerita of Modern Chinese Literature and Film at the University of Oregon.

Nele Noesselt (PhD, University of Vienna) is Professor of Political Science/International Relations, Global Governance and Politics of East Asia/China at the Institute of Political Science and the Institute of East Asian Studies, the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany.

Andrea Riemenschnitter (PhD, University of Goettingen) is Professor of Modern Chinese Language and Literature at the University of Zurich.

Carlos Rojas (PhD, Columbia University) is Professor of Chinese Cultural Studies; Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies; and Cinematic Arts at Duke University.

Giorgio Strafella (PhD, University of Nottingham) is Assistant Professor in the Department of Asian Studies and Senior Researcher in the Sinophone Borderlands Project, Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic.

Ralph Weber (PhD, University of St. Gallen) is Associate Professor of European Global Studies, and Director of the MA and PhD Programs in European Global Studies at the Institute for European Global Studies, University of Basel.

Alvin K. Wong (PhD, University of California, San Diego) is Assistant Professor in Comparative Literature at the University of Hong Kong.

Helena Wu (PhD, University of Zurich) is Canada Research Chair in Hong Kong Studies and Assistant Professor of Hong Kong Studies in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia in Canada.

Shuang Xu (PhD, Université Paris VIII) is Associate Professor at the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations of Paris Cité University and permanent member of the East Asian Civilizations Research Centre (CRCAO).

Kun Zhao (PhD, Beijing Normal University) is Associate Professor at the School of Literature, Shandong University, Jinan.

List of Figures

Introduction (Andrea Riemenschnitter, Jessica Imbach, and Justyna Jaguscik)

Part I: Technology

Chapter 1. Liu Cixin’s “The Poetry Cloud” and the Utopian Role of Literature (Wendy Larson)

Chapter 2. Do China’s Robots Dream the China Dream? Chinese Artificial Intelligence Poetry: Between Aesthetics and Politics (Joanna Krenz)

Chapter 3. Female Utopia on the World Wide Web: Matriarchal Fiction in Chinese Internet Literature (Shuang Xu)

Chapter 4. Life in the Surveillance Dystopia: From Xu Bing’s Dragonfly Eyes to Lu Yang’s Digital Reincarnation (Kiu-wai Chu)

Part II: Values and Traditions

Chapter 5. Re-Imaginations of Utopian Socialism and Post-Solar Nightmares: Liu Cixin’s “Wandering Earth Project” (Nele Noesselt)

Chapter 6. Between Utopianism and Political Realism: Liu Xiaobo, Political Confucians, and the CCP (Ralph Weber)

Chapter 7. Existential Utopia: Ge Fei’s “Peach Blossom Beauty” (Qian Cui)

Chapter 8. The Road to Revolutionary Utopia: Buddhist Rhetoric in the Red Narrative (Yunxia Chu)

Chapter 9. On “Superfluous Men”: Ban Yu’s Revitalization of Literary Tradition (Kun Zhao)

Part III: Places and Stages

Chapter 10. Dialectical Utopianism: Yan Lianke’s Lenin’s Kisses and Ou Ning’s Bishan Commune (Carlos Rojas)

Chapter 11. Rethinking Utopia Through Theater: World Factory and The Xiao Ping Incident by Grass Stage (Justyna Jaguscik)

Chapter 12. Utopias of Unalienated Labor: The Staging of We2s. Labor Exchange Market (Paola Iovene)

Chapter 13. Cultivating Heterotopia: Ideology and Affect in Chinese Gardens (William Callahan)

Part IV: Specters of the Past

Chapter 14. Anti-Utopia and the Poetics of Ruins, 1978–2018: A View from Visual Art and Poetry (Giorgio Strafella and Daria Berg)

Chapter 15. Specters of Utopia in Diceng Wenxue: Yu Hua’s The Seventh Day (Jessica Imbach)

Chapter 16. Revisiting Hong Kong’s Myth of Success: Utopian and Dystopian Forces in the (New) Lion Rock Spirit (Helena Wu)

Chapter 17. Beyond the Chinese Dream: On the Unbecoming of Chineseness in Chan Koonchung’s China Trilogy (Alvin K. Wong)

Chapter 18. Post-utopian Returns: The Peach Blossom Spring in Contemporary Literature and Landscape Art (Andrea Riemenschnitter)

Bibliography

Index