Culture, Economy and Modernity in China

Session Submission Type: Organized Panel Proposal Application

Abstract

This panel explores the multiple connections between the promotion of the cultural economy in China (the cultural and creative industries, but also 'creativity' and new forms of cultural consumption) and changing narratives of Chinese modernity. The renewal of culture (and its difficult relation to 'tradition') has always been a central stake in this drive for modernity. This was seen most famously in the May Fourth Movement, but returning in various ways in the Cultural Revolution, the 'opening up' period from 1978, and - the concern of this panel - more recent pushes for creativity and creative industries as crucial to China's next step up the value chain. This panel traces various aspects of the links between cultural economy and modernity, through the lens of cultural policy discourse and practice - in particular those of 'Shanghai Modern', of creativity as creative industries, of cultural industry policy and the promotion of the new 'Chinese Dream'. A key question across all these will be that of what Enrique Dussel described as the 'double project of simultaneously adapting to and overcoming modernity’. More specifically - is what sense might we talk of a specifically Chinese modernity?

Area of Study

• China and Inner Asia

Session Organizer

• Xin Gu, Monash University

Chair

• Justin O'Connor, Monash University

Individual Presentations

• Cultural Economy and Modernity in China - Justin O'Connor, Monash University

• Understanding the Cultural Industries from the Perspective of Chinese Modernity - Shilian Shan, Shanghai Jiao Tong University

• ‘Shanghai Modern’ – Exploring Alternative Modernity in China - Xin Gu, Monash University

• The Sphere of Chinese Aesthetics and the Responsibility of Contemporary Chinese Cultural Critics - Jie Wang, Shanghai Jiao Tong University

Discussant

• Justin O'Connor, Monash University