Women in Chinese Martial Arts Films of the New Millennium

2012-04-12 Social Science

Author : Ya-chen Chen
Release : 2012-04-12
Genre : Social Science
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 10X/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Women in Chinese Martial Arts Films of the New Millennium by : Ya-chen Chen

Download or read book Women in Chinese Martial Arts Films of the New Millennium written by Ya-chen Chen. This book was released on 2012-04-12. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Women and Gender in Chinese Martial Arts Films of the New Millennium, by Ya-chen Chen, is an excavation of underexposed gender issues focusing mainly on contradictory and troubled feminism in the film narratives. In the cinematic world of martial arts films, one can easily find representations of women of Ancient China released from the constraints of patriarchal social order to revel in a dreamlike space of their own. They can develop themselves, protect themselves, and even defeat or conquer men. This world not only frees women from the convention of foot-binding, but it also "unbinds" them in terms of education, critical thinking, talent, ambition, opportunities to socialize with different men, and the freedom or right to both choose their spouse and decide their own fate. Chen calls this phenomenon "Chinese cinematic martial arts feminism." The liberation is never sustaining or complete, however; Chen reveals the presence of a glass ceiling marking the maximal exercise of feminism and women's rights which the patriarchal order is willing to accept. As such, these films are not to be seen as celebrations of feminist liberation, but as enunciations of the patriarchal authority that suffuses "Chinese cinematic martial arts feminism." The film narratives under examination include Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (directed by Ang Lee); Hero (Zhang Yimou); House of the Flying Daggers (Zhang Yimou); Seven Swords (Tsui Hark); The Promise (Chen Kaige); The Banquet (Feng Xiaogang); and Curst of the Golden Flower (Zhang Yimou). Chen also touches upon the plots of two of the earliest award-winning Chinese martial arts films, A Touch of Zen and Legend of the Mountain, both directed by King Hu.

The Reckoning

2014-05-12 Art

Author : Eleanor Heartney
Release : 2014-05-12
Genre : Art
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 432/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis The Reckoning by : Eleanor Heartney

Download or read book The Reckoning written by Eleanor Heartney. This book was released on 2014-05-12. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The authors of After the Revolution return with an incisive study of the work of contemporary women artists. In After the Revolution, the authors concluded that "The battles may not all have been won . . . but barricades are gradually coming down, and work proceeds on all fronts in glorious profusion." Now, with The Reckoning, authors Heartney, Posner, Princenthal, and Scott bring into focus the accomplishments of 24 acclaimed international women artists born since 1960 who have benefited from the groundbreaking efforts of their predecessors. The book is organized in four thematic sections: "Bad Girls" profiles artists whose work represents an assault on conventional notions of gender and racial difference. "History Lessons" offers reflections on the self in the context of history and globalization. "Spellbound" focuses on women’s embrace of the irrational, subjective, and surreal, while "Domestic Disturbances" takes on women's conflicted relationship to home, family, and security. Written in lively prose and fully illustrated throughout, this book gives an informed account of the wonderful diversity of recent contemporary art by women. "An indispensable contribution to the literature on contemporary art by women." (Whitney Chadwick, author of Women, Art and Society) "In the 2007 book After the Revolution: Women Who Transformed Contemporary Art, [the authors] set a new standard in documenting and evaluating the work of a dozen key women artists, spanning generations between the 1960s to the 2000s. . . The beat goes on with the appearance of The Reckoning, written by the same authors in the same accessible scholarly style, but reflecting important historical changes over the past decade and more. In line with the increased presence of women in mainstream art, the book includes twice as many artists as its predecessor. And its global reach has expanded vastly, stretching from Europe and the Americas to Africa and China." (Holland Cotter, The New York Times)

Love in the New Millennium

2018-11-20 Fiction

Author : Can Xue
Release : 2018-11-20
Genre : Fiction
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 481/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Love in the New Millennium by : Can Xue

Download or read book Love in the New Millennium written by Can Xue. This book was released on 2018-11-20. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most ambitious work of fiction by a writer widely considered the most important novelist working in China today In this darkly comic novel, a group of women inhabits a world of constant surveillance, where informants lurk in the flowerbeds and false reports fly. Conspiracies abound in a community that normalizes paranoia and suspicion. Some try to flee—whether to a mysterious gambling bordello or to ancestral homes that can only be reached underground through muddy caves, sewers, and tunnels. Others seek out the refuge of Nest County, where traditional Chinese herbal medicines can reshape or psychologically transport the self. Each life is circumscribed by buried secrets and transcendent delusions. Can Xue's masterful love stories for the new millennium trace love's many guises—satirical, tragic, transient, lasting, nebulous, and fulfilling—against a kaleidoscopic backdrop drawn from East and West of commerce and industry, fraud and exploitation, sex and romance.

After the Revolution

2013-11-04 Art

Author : Eleanor Heartney
Release : 2013-11-04
Genre : Art
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 217/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis After the Revolution by : Eleanor Heartney

Download or read book After the Revolution written by Eleanor Heartney. This book was released on 2013-11-04. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?" asked the prominent art historian Linda Nochlin in a provocative 1971 essay. Today her insightful critique serves as a benchmark against which the progress of women artists may be measured. In this book, four prominent critics and curators describe the impact of women artists on contemporary art since the advent of the feminist movement.

Women's Wisconsin

2014-05-20 History

Author : Genevieve G. McBride
Release : 2014-05-20
Genre : History
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 633/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Women's Wisconsin by : Genevieve G. McBride

Download or read book Women's Wisconsin written by Genevieve G. McBride. This book was released on 2014-05-20. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Women's Wisconsin: From Native Matriarchies to the New Millennium, a women's history anthology published on Women's Equality Day 2005, made history as the first single-source history of Wisconsin women. This unique tome features dozens of excerpts of articles as well as primary sources, such as women's letters, reminiscences, and oral histories, previously published over many decades in the Wisconsin Magazine of History and other Wisconsin Historical Society Press publications. Editor and historian Genevieve G. McBride provides the contextual commentary and overarching analysis to make the history of Wisconsin women accessible to students, scholars, and lifelong learners.

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