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    2020, Vol. 14 Issue (2) : 228-253    https://doi.org/10.3868/s010-009-020-0011-0
SPECIAL ISSUE ARTICLE
Hearing (Technological) Anomalies: An Analysis of Han Song’s “The Rebirth Bricks”
Chiara Cigarini()
Modern and Contemporary Chinese Literature, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
 Download: PDF(455 KB)  
 Export: BibTeX | EndNote | Reference Manager | ProCite | RefWorks
Abstract

Contemporary Chinese science fiction author and journalist Han Song’s works often cross the lines dividing reality from imagination, science fiction from literary mainstream, technology from the supernatural. This article, focusing in particular on Han’s novella “The Rebirth Bricks” (Zaisheng zhuan), aims to investigate the role played by the senses in a shift from the science fictional novum to the fictional “uncanny.” Featuring technological bricks, haunted by sounds of the dead which are perceived through sight and hearing, this novella is analyzed from the standpoint of this perceptual complementarity which expresses Han Song’s “science fictional re-enchantment,” a re-use of supernatural themes of the past that allow him to express the (technological) anomalies of China’s current reality.

Keywords Chinese science fiction      Han Song      science fictional re-enchantment      zhiguai      sensory     
Issue Date: 16 July 2020
 Cite this article:   
Chiara Cigarini. Hearing (Technological) Anomalies: An Analysis of Han Song’s “The Rebirth Bricks”[J]. Front. Lit. Stud. China, 2020, 14(2): 228-253.
 URL:  
https://academic.hep.com.cn/flsc/EN/10.3868/s010-009-020-0011-0
https://academic.hep.com.cn/flsc/EN/Y2020/V14/I2/228
[1] Stephanie SU. Sensuous Past: Historical Imagination and Transmedia Aesthetics in Modern China[J]. Front. Lit. Stud. China, 2019, 13(3): 440-474.
[2] Sean Macdonald. Notes on the Fantastic in Chinese Literature and Film[J]. Front. Lit. Stud. China, 2019, 13(1): 1-24.
[3] LUO Xiaoming. The Divided City: Imagining the “Urban” in Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction*[J]. Front. Lit. Stud. China, 2018, 12(4): 583-609.
[4] YANG Qiong. Tales of Encounter: A Case Study of Science Fiction Films in Greater China in the 1970s and 1980s[J]. Front. Lit. Stud. China, 2015, 9(3): 436-452.
Viewed
Full text


Abstract

Cited

  Shared   
  Discussed