Revolutionary Melodrama: Tales of Family, Kinship, and the Nation in Modern China
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Date
2022-10-04
Authors
Xiong, Shuangting
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Publisher
University of Oregon
Abstract
Revolutionary Melodrama: Tales of Family, Kinship, and the Nation in Modern China investigates the seemingly paradoxical pairing of “revolution” and “melodrama” and the vital role the melodramatic mode played in shaping modern aesthetics in China. Where melodrama is commonly understood to disavow revolutionary change and maintain the status quo, I argue that revolutionary melodramas function as emotional pedagogies in which abstract revolutionary ideas and ideals are made emotionally legible, and political solidarities more possible, to the masses. By deploying melodrama as an analytical category, this dissertation focuses on three representative manifestations of revolutionary melodramatic aesthetics at the micro-level of individuals and families. Each chapter of my dissertation draws together different media across three key historical moments in twentieth century China: the iconic May Fourth novel Jia (1933), the music-drama The White-Haired Girl (1945) created in wartime Yan’an, and the model opera film The Red Lantern (1970) produced during the height of the Cultural Revolution. In their reappropriations of the melodramatic mode, these texts deploy the affective trope of family and kinship to articulate alternative affiliations and create a passionate revolutionary collective capable of making socio-political change.
Revolutionary Melodrama shows that aesthetic texts can be more than a mere reflection of what people’s thoughts and feelings at a given historical moment; they are also mediated experience of history and modernity that can actively shape the affective meaning of family/kinship and transform existing structures of feeling at the same time. On the other hand, while the melodramatic mode provided a powerful, dichotomized trope that can be mobilized in different historical circumstances for varied ideological purposes, it ultimately failed to transcend these sets of dichotomies. Revolutionary melodrama oscillates between personal si feelings and public/social gong passions, between the particularities of familial and kinship bonds and the universality of the nation-state, and yet is never able to truly transcend such dichotomies.
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Keywords
affective ethics, family, kinship, melodrama, revolution