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The Avant-Garde and the Popular in Modern China: Tian Han and the Intersection of Performance and Politics
Liang Luo
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The Avant-Garde and the Popular in Modern China explores how an important group of Chinese performing artists invested in politics and the pursuit of the avant-garde came to terms with different ways of being "popular" in modern times. In particular, playwright and activist Tian Han (1898-1968) exemplified the instability of conventional delineations between the avant-garde, popular culture, and political propaganda. Liang Luo traces Tian's trajectory through key moments in the evolution of twentieth-century Chinese national culture, from the Christian socialist cosmopolitanism of post–WWI Tokyo to the urban modernism of Shanghai in 1920s and 30s, then into the Chinese hinterland during the late 1930s and 40s, and finally to the Communist Beijing of the 1950s, revealing the dynamic interplay of art and politics throughout this period. Understanding Tian in his time sheds light upon a new generation of contemporary Chinese avant-gardists (Ai Wei Wei being the best known), who, half a century later, are similarly engaging national politics and popular culture.
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Cover
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Title
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Copyright
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Dedication
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Acknowledgments
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Contents
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Selected List of Tian Han's Works
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PROLOGUE
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INTRODUCTION: THE AVANT-GARDE AND THE POPULAR
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Avant-Garde, Popular, and Propaganda
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A Chinese Avant-Gardist
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“Creating the New Woman” and “Going to the People”
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Situating the Book
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Outline of Chapters
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CHAPTER ONE: THE LIGHTS OF TOKYO
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Tian Han in Tokyo
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Performing “Spiritual Light”
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Tokyo at the Post–World War I Moment
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The Christian Context
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Avant-Garde Encounters through Popular Media
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Art and Social Movements: Cross-Illuminations
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Conclusion
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CHAPTER TWO: THE NIGHT AND FIRE OF SHANGHAI
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Shanghai Night: Connecting Japan and China
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Back to Japan: Between the Aesthetic and the Proletarian
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Night and Fire in Independent Publishing
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Independent Filmmaking as a Silver Dream
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The Politics of Performing Salome and Carmen
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Conclusion
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CHAPTER THREE: LOVERS AND HEROES IN THE WARTIME HINTERLAND
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The Avant-Garde and the People
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The Use of Tradition and Intermedia Experiments
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From Lovers to Volunteers
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How to Conduct “Guerrilla Drama Warfare”?
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“A New Legend of Lovers and Heroes” and Wartime Opera
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“Rhapsody on the Sounds of Autumn” and Wartime Spoken Drama
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“Memories of the South” or “The Lament of the South”
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Conclusion
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CHAPTER FOUR: THE INTERNATIONAL AVANT-GARDE AND THE CHINESE NATIONAL ANTHEM
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One Song, Many Renditions
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The International Avant-Garde
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One Country, Two “National Anthems”
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Making “March of the Volunteers”
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Marketing “March of the Volunteers”
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Performing “March of the Volunteers”
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Mass Singing “March of the Volunteers”
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Conclusion
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CHAPTER FIVE: A WHITE SNAKE IN BEIJING: RE-CREATING SOCIALIST OPERA
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Obsession with Chinese Opera
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Metamorphosis of the White Snake
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The Peking Opera “White Snake”
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A Profound Propaganda: The International Avant-Garde in the 1950s
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Epilogue: Endings, Happy and Otherwise
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Tian Han and Guan Hanqing
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Ai Wei Wei and the Transformation of the Chinese Avant-Garde
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Notes
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Glossary
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Bibliography
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Index
Citable Link
Published: 2014
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
- 978-0-472-12034-5 (ebook)
- 978-0-472-07217-0 (hardcover)
- 978-0-472-05217-2 (paper)