This volume brings together emerging approaches and addresses shifting paradigms in Chinese science fiction studies, offering a window on fan cultures, internet fiction, gender, eco-criticism, post-humanism and biomedical discourse. These studies present a “second wave” of Chinese sf studies, re-evaluating the canon of Chinese sf print and cinematic production, and expand the range of critical approaches to the subject. The structure of the volume is both chronological and theme-focused. These studies also demonstrate that Chinese science fiction represents a significant contribution to modern Chinese cultural production, both in terms of its value, speaking powerfully to our modern condition, and its sheer volume in terms of production and consumption. Chinese science fiction speaks to both China’s rapidly shifting reality, its political multiplicity and its formless future, voicing the anticipations and anxieties of a new epoch filled with accelerating alterations and increasing uncertainty.
Arvustused
This book offers a robust framework for understanding Chinese science fiction within its broader cultural and literary contexts. ... Meticulously researched and thoughtfully crafted, this is an invaluable resource for a diverse range of readers. It serves as an essential textbook and reference for science fiction scholars worldwide, while also supporting educators, students and researchers interested in Chinese literature. Furthermore, it appeals to general readers intrigued by Chinese science fiction and its reflections on Chinese society and culture. (Yuqin Jiang, The China Quarterly, April 21, 2025)
Chapter
1. Introduction.
Chapter
2. Kang Youweis Book of the
Heavens and the Porous Epistemological Grounds of Early-modern Chinese
Science Fiction.
Chapter
3. Intelligent Humanoid Machines: Imaginations of
Physical and Mental Transformation in late Qing Literature and Their
Intellectual Origins.
Chapter
4. The King of Electricity from China:
Science, Technology, and the Vision of World Order in Late Qing China.-
Chapter
5. Formal Fictions: Chinese Science Fiction in Translation.-
Chapter 6. The Writing Editors: Late Qing and Republican Media Professionals
as Authors of Science Fiction.
Chapter 7. Projecting Eco-Futures: Cinematic
Visions of Utopian Science and Ecology from the Mao Era to the Deng Era.-
Chapter 8. Information, the Body, and Humanism in the Chinese Cyber Novel
Forty Millennia of Authenticity Cultivation.
Chapter 9. Open Up Your Brain
Hole: Spatial Imaginaries in Chinese Online Science Fiction.
Chapter 10. Of
Illness and Illusion: The Chaosmology of Han Songs Hospital Trilogy.-
Chapter 11. Liu Cixin and the Cosmic Pastoral.
Chapter 12. Bodies in
Transformation: The Politics of Post-80s Science Fiction Authors Chi Hui,
Chen Qiufan, and Zhang Ran.
Chapter 13. The Posthuman and the Neo-Baroque in
Taiwan Science Fiction
Mingwei Song is Professor of Modern Chinese Literature at Wellesley College. He is the author of numerous books and research articles, including Young China: National Rejuvenation and the Bildungsroman, 19001959 (2015), New Wave in Chinese Science Fiction: History, Poetics, Texts (2020; in Chinese) and Fear of Seeing: A Poetics of Chinese Science Fiction (2023). He is the co-editor of The Reincarnated Giant: An Anthology of Twenty-First Century Chinese Science Fiction (2018).
Nathaniel Isaacson is Associate Professor of Modern Chinese Literature in the Department of World Languages and Cultures at North Carolina State University. His book, Celestial Empire: the Emergence of Chinese Science Fiction (2017), examines the emergence of science fiction in late Qing China and the relationship between science fiction and Orientalism.
Hua Li is Professor of Chinese in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at Montana State University. She has published two monographs: Contemporary Chinese Fiction by Su Tong and Yu Hua: Coming of Age in Troubled Times (2011) and Chinese Science Fiction during the Post-Mao Cultural Thaw (2021).
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