The Politics of Memory in Sinophone Cinemas and Image Culture

This book investigates Sinophone films and art projects that express the desire for archiving and reconfiguring the past. Comprising ten chapters, it brings together contributors from an array of disciplines - artists, filmmakers, curators, and literary scholars - to grapple with the creative ambiguities of Sinophone cinemas and image culture.

Peng Hsiao-yen is Research Fellow at the Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy, Academia Sinica, Taiwan. Ella Raidel is Senior Postdoc (Elise-Richter-PEEK) at Art University Linz, Austria.

Introduction I. Remembering China: The Individual Self, the Collective, and the State Apparatus Chapter 1. Why Remember Everyday Movie-Going in Cultural Revolution Shanghai? Chapter 2. Persuasive Communication in Chinese Historical Film: The Founding of a Republic as a Milestone Chapter 3. Images of Redress and Rehabilitation: "pingfan (in) film" and perceptions of coming to terms with the past in China Chapter 4. A Familiar Stranger - Grierson in China II. Politicizing Archives: Artists and Digital History Chapter 5. The Use and Abuse of the Archives in Contemporary Art Chapter 6. Making Reverberation: Residue of Sounds and Images Chapter 7. The Digital Emergence of a New History: The Archiving of Colonial Japanese Documentaries on Taiwan III. Manufactured Archives: the Fictional Memory Chapter 8. Wong Kar-wai's Mood Trilogy: Robot, Tears, and the Affective Aura Chapter 9. The Missing and the Fictional Memory: Leitmotifs of Tsai Ming Liang's Oeuvre Chapter 10. Light and Shadow of Jianghu: Peering into the Contemporary Political Mythology in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hero and The Grandmaster