Beyond Sinology - Chinese Writing and the Scripts of Culture

New communication and information technologies remain challenging for the Chinese script, which, unlike alphabetic or other phonetic scripts, relies on multiple signifying principles. In recent decades, this multiplicity has generated a rich corpus of reflection and experimentation in literature, film, visual and performance art, and design and architecture, both within China and different parts of the West. Approaching this history from alternative theoretical perspectives, this volume pinpoints the phenomena binding languages, scripts, and medial expressions to cultural and national identity. Through a complex study of intercultural representations, exchanges, and tensions, the text focuses on the concrete "scripting" of identity and alterity, advancing a new understanding of the links between identity and medium and a new critique of articulations that rely on single, monolithic, and univocal definitions of writing.

List of contents

List of IllustrationsA Note on Characters, Romanization, Translations, and ImagesAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Script Politics1. Corpographies2. Iconographies3. Sonographies4. Allographies5. TechnographiesConclusion: Beyond SinologyNotesBibliographyIndex

About the author

Andrea Bachner is assistant professor of comparative literature and Asian studies at Pennsylvania State University.

Product details

• Authors: Bachner, Andrea Bachner, Bachner Andrea
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 21.01.2014
• EAN: 9780231164528
• ISBN: 978-0-231-16452-8
• No. of pages: 296
• Series: Global Chinese Culture; Global Chinese Culture
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies; Social sciences, law, business > Sociology > General, dictionaries; China, Media Studies, Cultural Studies, Linguistics, LITERARY CRITICISM / Semiotics & Theory, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Media Studies, LITERARY CRITICISM / Asian / Chinese, Chinese, Literature: history & criticism