Please wait a minute...
Frontiers of Literary Studies in China

ISSN 1673-7318

ISSN 1673-7423(Online)

CN 11-5745/I

Postal Subscription Code 80-982

Front. Lit. Stud. China    2014, Vol. 8 Issue (1) : 181-202    https://doi.org/10.3868/s010-003-014-0009-8
research-article
Circulating Smallness on Weibo: The Dialectics of Microfiction
Haomin Gong1(),Xin Yang2()
1. Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106, USA
2. Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, Macalester College, Saint Paul, MN 55105, USA
 Download: PDF(300 KB)  
 Export: BibTeX | EndNote | Reference Manager | ProCite | RefWorks
Abstract

The focus of this essay is microfiction (wei xiaoshuo), a form of Weibo-based fiction writing. From the perspective of its most prominent feature—microness—the authors investigate the dialectical relationship between microness and largeness embodied in its form, the context of its emergence, the conditions of its existence, as well as the issues reflected in its content. Studying three disparate cases of microfiction writing, namely microfiction selected from contests hosted by Sina, Chen Peng’s personal Weibo posts, and Wen Huanjian’s Weibo novel, Love in the Age of Microblogging (Weibo shiqi de aiqing), we explore the cultural status of microfiction as a reflection of the combination of literary writing and online activities; and its aesthetic, literary, and cultural characteristics. Reading microfiction in both a literary and a sociocultural text, we argue that the smallness is an intrusion upon the largeness and hegemony of grand narratives on the one hand, and a reflection of a boradly changing reality on the other.

Keywords Weibo      microfiction      microblog      internet writing      fiction      literary text      cultural text     
Issue Date: 16 May 2014
 Cite this article:   
Xin Yang,Haomin Gong. Circulating Smallness on Weibo: The Dialectics of Microfiction[J]. Front. Lit. Stud. China, 2014, 8(1): 181-202.
 URL:  
https://academic.hep.com.cn/flsc/EN/10.3868/s010-003-014-0009-8
https://academic.hep.com.cn/flsc/EN/Y2014/V8/I1/181
[1] Henry Lem. Branding “Literary Genius” in Jin Shengtan’s 70-Chapter Edition of the Water Margin [J]. Front. Lit. Stud. China, 2020, 14(3): 480-513.
[2] FAN Yilun. Between History and Fiction: The Possibility of Historical Science Fiction—Narrative Device and Conceptual Experiment in Qian Lifang’s Mandate of Heaven (Tianming )[J]. Front. Lit. Stud. China, 2020, 14(2): 330-355.
[3] CHEN Shujie. “Elder’s Dual Vector Foil” and the “Spectre” of Karl Marx: The Imagination of Social Form in the 21st Century Chinese Science Fictions[J]. Front. Lit. Stud. China, 2020, 14(2): 306-329.
[4] CHEN Qi. The Clash of Civilizations and Cultural Self-Consciousness: Science Fiction and Social Reality in The Three-Body Problem Trilogy[J]. Front. Lit. Stud. China, 2020, 14(2): 275-305.
[5] LUO Yalin. The New Liu Cixin Literature: Science Fiction and the Third World Experience[J]. Front. Lit. Stud. China, 2020, 14(2): 254-274.
[6] Chiara Cigarini. Hearing (Technological) Anomalies: An Analysis of Han Song’s “The Rebirth Bricks”[J]. Front. Lit. Stud. China, 2020, 14(2): 228-253.
[7] JIANG Zhenyu. Contributions and Misunderstandings: Zheng Wenguang and “Science Fiction Realism”[J]. Front. Lit. Stud. China, 2020, 14(2): 202-227.
[8] LI Guangyi. The Decision of Luo Ji: The Existentialist Connotation and the Cultural Revelation of The Three-Body Problem [J]. Front. Lit. Stud. China, 2020, 14(2): 181-201.
[9] WU Yan. Imagination in Chinese Science Fiction[J]. Front. Lit. Stud. China, 2020, 14(2): 161-180.
[10] Satoru Hashimoto. Science, History, Fiction: The Facetious Mediality of Lu Xun’s Old Stories Retold[J]. Front. Lit. Stud. China, 2019, 13(3): 385-404.
[11] LUO Xiaoming. The Divided City: Imagining the “Urban” in Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction*[J]. Front. Lit. Stud. China, 2018, 12(4): 583-609.
[12] Veronica Hollinger. Anxiety and Utopia in the Anthropocene[J]. Front. Lit. Stud. China, 2018, 12(4): 565-582.
[13] SUZUKI Masahisa. Literary Activities among the “Educated Youth”: Background on Bei Dao’s Waves[J]. Front. Lit. Stud. China, 2017, 11(3): 462-487.
[14] David Hull. Value in What is Saved and What is Lost: Textology in Mao Dun’s Eclipse [J]. Front. Lit. Stud. China, 2016, 10(2): 204-233.
[15] Shuang XU. Traveling through Time and Searching for Utopia: Utopian Imaginaries in Internet Time-Travel Fiction[J]. Front. Lit. Stud. China, 2016, 10(1): 113-132.
Viewed
Full text


Abstract

Cited

  Shared   
  Discussed