With Liu Cixin’s The Three-Body Problem in English translation winning the Hugo Award for Best Novel and his Death’s End making it onto the New York Times bestseller list, a Chinese “sci-fi invasion” of the United States (in the words of a Wall Street Journal report) seems to be truly underway. Liu, of course, is not alone in his entry into the United States; he is joined by a growing body of sci-fi (or sf) writers from the Sinophone world, making the rise of Chinese sf visible even in English-speaking communities. This course explores the development of Chinese science fiction in a global context since the early twentieth century against a history of wars, reform and revolutions, and China’s rise as a great economy and technological innovator in the world. With stories, novel excerpts, comic books, and films, we will examine the intersection of literature, science, empire and nation, modernity and modernization. This course will be conducted in English in the form of lectures and discussions.
Unit 1 Late Qing & Republican China: Fantasies of Colonial Modernity
Unit 2 Socialist China 1949 – 1990: Laboring Bodies, Gendered Bodies
Unit 3 Reform Era (1990 to the present): Changing Landscapes