Calligraphy and Power in Contemporary Chinese Society

Calligraphy and Power in Contemporary Chinese Society PDF Author: Yuehping Yen
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113437061X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 285

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Book Description
This unusual and interesting book is a fascinating account of the world of Chinese writing. It examines Chinese space and the political and social use of writing as propaganda, a publicity booster and as a ladder for social climbing.

Calligraphy and Power in Contemporary Chinese Society

Calligraphy and Power in Contemporary Chinese Society PDF Author: Yuehping Yen
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113437061X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 285

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Book Description
This unusual and interesting book is a fascinating account of the world of Chinese writing. It examines Chinese space and the political and social use of writing as propaganda, a publicity booster and as a ladder for social climbing.

A History of Chinese Calligraphy

A History of Chinese Calligraphy PDF Author: Youhe Zeng
Publisher: Chinese University Press
ISBN: 9789622014268
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 460

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Book Description
Chinese calligraphy has been an independent visual art form for thousands of years. Its wonderful aesthetics has inspired the art of Chinese painting since the second century B.C. Before pen and pencil were introduced to China, millions practiced the art of writing in ink. In the twentieth century, the art of calligraphy has not only fascinated modern Chinese who are part of this continuous tradition, but has also captured the interest and imagination of the world. This is the first proper history of Chinese calligraphy in English.

Understanding Chinese Society

Understanding Chinese Society PDF Author: Norman Stockman
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745668666
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 413

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Book Description
This new book provides an accessible and wide-ranging introduction to the main features of Chinese society. Drawing on a wealth of material, the author offers a fresh understanding of a unique society that has undergone continuous transformation and upheaval throughout the twentieth century. Understanding Chinese Society looks in all its richness at the society with the largest population on earth. In order to explore long-term change and continuity, the book examines China from pre-revolutionary times to today's rapidly modernising society, although the focus is on recent change. Particular attention is paid to China's cultural traditions and hierarchical relationships in familial and wider social settings, and their fate in the modern world. Successive chapters investigate changes in the relations of rural and urban sectors of society; in the structure of families; in political and economic power; in cultural hegemony, education and the media; and in patterns of social inequality. A final chapter asks whether Chinese society is becoming more complex and differentiated in the course of modernisation and considers recent debates on the growth of civil society and democratisation. This book will be indispensable for anyone studying Chinese society, Asian societies and comparative sociology.

China A to Z

China A to Z PDF Author: May-lee Chai
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 014218084X
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
A practical and accessible guide to an ancient but rapidly changing culture—now revised and updated Perfect for business, pleasure, or armchair travelers, China A to Z explains the customs, culture, and etiquette essential for any trip or for anyone wanting to understand this complex country. In one hundred brief, reader-friendly essays alphabetized by subject, this fully revised and updated edition provides a crash course in the etiquette and politics of contemporary China as well as the nation’s geography and venerable history. In it, readers will discover: · How the recently selected President and his advisors approach global relations · Why China is considered the fastest growing market for fashion and luxury goods · What you should bring when visiting a Chinese household · What’s hot in Chinese art · How recent scandals impact Chinese society From architecture and body language to Confucianism and feng shui, China A to Z offers accessible and authoritative information about China.

A Philosophy of Chinese Architecture

A Philosophy of Chinese Architecture PDF Author: David Wang
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317505662
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
A Philosophy of Chinese Architecture: Past, Present, Future examines the impact of Chinese philosophy on China’s historic structures, as well as on modern Chinese urban aesthetics and architectural forms. For architecture in China moving forward, author David Wang posits a theory, the New Virtualism, which links current trends in computational design with long-standing Chinese philosophical themes. The book also assesses twentieth-century Chinese architecture through the lenses of positivism, consciousness (phenomenology), and linguistics (structuralism and poststructuralism). Illustrated with over 70 black-and-white images, this book establishes philosophical baselines for assessing architectural developments in China, past, present and future.

The Minjian Avant-Garde

The Minjian Avant-Garde PDF Author: Chang Tan
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501773208
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
The Minjian Avant-Garde studies how experimental artists in China mixed with, brought changes to, and let themselves be transformed by minjian, the volatile and diverse public of the post-Mao era. Departing from the usual emphasis on art institutions, global markets, or artists' communities, Chang Tan proposes a new analytical framework in the theories of socially engaged art that stresses the critical agency of participants, the affective functions of objects, and the versatility of the artists in diverse sociopolitical spheres. Drawing from hitherto untapped archival materials and interviews with the artists, Tan challenges the views of Chinese artists as either dissidents or conformists to the regime and sees them as navigators and negotiators among diverse political discourses and interests. She questions the fetishization of marginalized communities among practitioners of progressive art and politics, arguing that the members of minjian are often more complex, defiant, and savvy than the elites would assume. The Minjian Avant-Garde critically assesses the rise of populism in both art and politics and show that minjian could constitute either a democratizing or a coercive force. This book was published with generous support from the George Dewey and Mary J. Krumrine Endowment.

The Chinese Writing System in Asia

The Chinese Writing System in Asia PDF Author: Yu Li
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000699064
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 351

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Book Description
The Chinese Writing System in Asia: An Interdisciplinary Perspective integrates a diverse range of disciplinary approaches in examining how the Chinese script represents and actively shapes personal and social identities in and beyond Asia. It is an ideal read for students and scholars interested in a broad and culturally rich introduction to research on the Chinese writing system. It can also serve as the main text of an undergraduate course on the subject. Key features of this volume include: Insights from studies of the Chinese writing system in linguistics, script reform and technology, gender, identity, literature, and the visual arts; Examples embedded in inquiries of the cultural history and contemporary society of Asia; Rigorous yet accessible discussions of complex concepts and phenomena that assume no prior knowledge of Asian languages or linguistics; Supplementary multimedia materials and resources, including instructional support, available online.

Literacy in the Persianate World

Literacy in the Persianate World PDF Author: Brian Spooner
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 1934536563
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 457

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Book Description
Persian has been a written language since the sixth century B.C. Only Chinese, Greek, and Latin have comparable histories of literacy. Although Persian script changed—first from cuneiform to a modified Aramaic, then to Arabic—from the ninth to the nineteenth centuries it served a broader geographical area than any language in world history. It was the primary language of administration and belles lettres from the Balkans under the earlier Ottoman Empire to Central China under the Mongols, and from the northern branches of the Silk Road in Central Asia to southern India under the Mughal Empire. Its history is therefore crucial for understanding the function of writing in world history. Each of the chapters of Literacy in the Persianate World opens a window onto a particular stage of this history, starting from the reemergence of Persian in the Arabic script after the Arab-Islamic conquest in the seventh century A.D., through the establishment of its administrative vocabulary, its literary tradition, its expansion as the language of trade in the thirteenth century, and its adoption by the British imperial administration in India, before being reduced to the modern role of national language in three countries (Afghanistan, Iran, and Tajikistan) in the twentieth century. Two concluding chapters compare the history of written Persian with the parallel histories of Chinese and Latin, with special attention to the way its use was restricted and channeled by social practice. This is the first comparative study of the historical role of writing in three languages, including two in non-Roman scripts, over a period of two and a half millennia, providing an opportunity for reassessment of the work on literacy in English that has accumulated over the past half century. The editors take full advantage of this opportunity in their introductory essay.

Brushed in Light

Brushed in Light PDF Author: Abé Markus Nornes
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0472902431
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 175

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Book Description
Drawing on a millennia of calligraphy theory and history, Brushed in Light examines how the brushed word appears in films and in film cultures of Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and PRC cinemas. This includes silent era intertitles, subtitles, title frames, letters, graffiti, end titles, and props. Markus Nornes also looks at the role of calligraphy in film culture at large, from gifts to correspondence to advertising. The book begins with a historical dimension, tracking how calligraphy is initially used in early cinema and how it is continually rearticulated by transforming conventions and the integration of new technologies. These chapters ask how calligraphy creates new meaning in cinema and demonstrate how calligraphy, cinematography, and acting work together in a single film. The last part of the book moves to other regions of theory. Nornes explores the cinematization of the handwritten word and explores how calligraphers understand their own work.

Asia through Art and Anthropology

Asia through Art and Anthropology PDF Author: Fuyubi Nakamura
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000189570
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
* AWARDED BEST ANTHOLOGY BY THE ART ASSOCIATION OF AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND *How has Asia been imagined, represented and transferred both literally and visually across linguistic, geopolitical and cultural boundaries? This book explores the shifting roles of those who produce, critique and translate creative forms and practices, for which distinctions of geography, ethnicity, tradition and modernity have become fluid. Drawing on accounts of modern and contemporary art, film, literature, fashion and performance, it challenges established assumptions of the cultural products of Asia.Special attention is given to the role of cultural translators or 'long-distance cultural specialists' whose works bridge or traverse different worlds, with the inclusion of essays by three important artists who share personal accounts of their experiences creating and showing artworks that negotiate diverse cultural contexts.With contributions from key scholars of Asian art and culture, including art historian John Clark and anthropologist Clare Harris, alongside fresh voices in the field, Asia Through Art and Anthropology will be essential reading for students and scholars of anthropology, art history, Asian studies, visual and cultural studies.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The publication of the color plates of works by Phaptawan Suwannakudt and Savanhdary Vongpoothorn is funded by the Australian Government.