Title The mouth that begs : hunger, cannibalism, and the politics of eating in modern China / Gang Yue

Published Durham, NC : Duke University Press, 1999

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Description 1 online resource (viii, 447 pages) Series Post-contemporary interventions Post-contemporary interventions. Contents Discoursing Food: Some Notes toward a Semiotic of Eating in Ancient China -- The Social Embodiment of Modernity -- Lu Xun and Cannibalism -- Shen Congwen's "Modest Proposal" -- Writing Hunger: From Mao to the Dao -- Hunger Revolution and Revolutionary Hunger -- Postrevolutionary Leftovers: Zhang Xianliang and Ah Cheng -- The Return (of) Cannibalism after Tiananmen, or Red Monument in a Latrine Pit -- Monument Revisited: Zheng Yi and Liu Zhenyun -- From Cannibalism to Carnivorism: Mo Yan's Liquorland -- Sampling of Variety: Gender and Cross-Cultural Perspectives -- Embodied Spaces of Home: Xiao Hong, Wang Anyi, and Li Ang -- Blending Chinese in America: Maxine Hong Kingston, Jade Snow Wong, and Amy Tan Summary The Chinese ideogram chi is far richer in connotation than the equivalent English verb "to eat." Chi can also be read as "the mouth that begs for food and words." A concept manifest in the twentieth-century Chinese political reality of revolution and massacre, chi suggests a narrative of desire that moves from lack to satiation and back again. In China such fundamental acts as eating or refusing to eat can carry enormous symbolic weight. This book examines the twentieth-century Chinese political experience as it is represented in literature through hunger, cooking, eating, and cannibalizing. At the core of Gang Yue's argument lies the premise that the discourse surrounding the most universal of basic human acts--eating--is a culturally specific one. Yue's discussion begins with a brief look at ancient Chinese alimentary writing and then moves on to its main concern: the exploration and textual analysis of themes of eating in modern Chinese literature from the May Fourth period through the post-Tiananmen era. The broad historical scope of this volume illustrates how widely applicable eating-related metaphors can be. For instance, Yue shows how cannibalism symbolizes old China under European colonization in the writing of Lu Xun. In Mo Yan's 1992 novel Liquorland, however, cannibalism becomes the symbol of overindulgent consumerism. Yue considers other writers as well, such as Shen Congwen, Wang Ruowang, Lu Wenfu, Zhang Zianliang, Ah Cheng, Zheng Yi, and Liu Zhenyun. A special section devoted to women writers includes a chapter on Xiao Hong, Wang Anyi, and Li Ang, and another on the Chinese-American women writers Jade Snow Wong, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Amy Tan. Throughout, the author compares and contrasts the work of these writers with similarly themed Western literature, weaving a personal and political semiotics of eating. The Mouth That Begs will interest sinologists, literary critics, anthropologists, cultural studies scholars, and everyone curious about the semiotics of food Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 419-433) and index Notes Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212 MiAaHDL In English with some Chinese digitized 2010 HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve pda MiAaHDL Print version record Subject Chinese literature -- 20th century -- History and criticism Politics in literature. Hunger in literature. American literature -- Chinese American authors -- History and criticism Chinese Americans -- Intellectual life Chinese Americans in literature. LITERARY CRITICISM -- Asian -- General. American literature -- Chinese American authors Chinese Americans in literature Chinese literature Hunger in literature Politics in literature Kannibalismus Geschichte Literatur Hunger Levensmiddelen. Littérature chinoise -- 20e siècle -- Histoire et critique. Littérature chinoise -- Thèmes, motifs. Science politique -- Dans la littérature. Littérature américaine -- Auteurs d'origine asiatique -- Histoire et critique. Faim -- Dans la littérature. China Chinesisch. Genre/Form Criticism, interpretation, etc. Form Electronic book LC no. 98045873 ISBN 9780822398516 0822398516

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