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Chinese Thirdspace: The Paradox of Moderate Politics, 1946â€“2020

By (author) Jianmei Liu

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Chinese intellectuals have long chafed under the dominance of dualitiesâ€”the sense that they are trapped between two diametrically opposed forces, with no choice but to pick one side or the other. Over the years, they have been driven into binary debates such as reform versus revolution, tradition versus modernity, the West versus the East, and left versus right. At the same time, a number of key thinkers have sought to transcend the extremes and find middle ground. This book examines how a diverse set of Chinese intellectuals carved out in-between spaces beyond the poles of competing ideologies for greater openness, multiplicity, and pluralism. Reappropriating and rehistoricizing the concept of Thirdspaceâ€”theorized by Homi Bhabha and Edward Sojaâ€”Jianmei Liu traces how writers and artists, in different times and places, have explored and developed alternatives to either/or dichotomies. Chinese Thirdspace brings together an unexpected group of cases, including Zhang Dongsunâ€™s political philosophy, Yin Haiguangâ€™s â€œcolorless thought,â€ Jin Yongâ€™s martial arts fiction, Liu Zaifuâ€™s fragmentary writing, Gao Xingjianâ€™s transmedia cine-poems, Xi Xiâ€™s hybrid works, Chi Zijianâ€™s eulogy of shamanism, Chu Tien-Hsinâ€™s various heterotopias, and Chan Koonchungâ€™s speculative political novel, concluding with the controversy over Fang Fangâ€™s Wuhan Diary. Their works offer new ways to grapple with the modern Chinese experience, and as Liu shows, they contain alternative possibilities for a future beyond the binary oppositions of our current era. Wide-ranging and theoretically rich, this interdisciplinary book demonstrates the pivotal role of Thirdspace in the intellectual history, politics, philosophy, literature, aesthetics, art, and film of modern China.