From East to West (A Study of 20th Century Mainland China Student Novelists)

Author: Li Dongfang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-11-01
Features: This book not only outlines the main trends of Chinese student novels in mainland China in the 20th century but also explores the changes in the mindset of students during the modernization process. As intermediaries in the cultural exchange between East and West, students can vividly reflect the traces of cultural clashes and exchanges between the two civilizations. They are also the vanguard force of China's modernization movement. Since the late Qing Dynasty, students have been primarily shaped as "charismatic" heroes, expected to shoulder the sacred duty of saving the nation and strengthening the people. However, the decline of Chinese culture over the past century has led to a servile consciousness and inferiority complex among the Chinese people, which has taken root in some students and grown maliciously, earning ridicule from the public. In mainland China since the new era, the behavior and experiences of students have blended the mindset and psychological expectations of the "modernity of the economic center," expressing and symbolizing the unique experiences of China in this process during the 1980s and 1990s. Contemporary student literature is a new stream and the vanguard echo of the early 21st-century student literature, revealing China's modernity anxiety under the world bipolar political-economic relationship formed after World War II.