A Novel Approach to China

This book explores Chinese novelists’ distinctive contributions to the China debate in terms of the key issues of Chinese language, power dynamics and Confucian tradition. As China is rising, Chinese scholars and policymakers are debating heatedly over China’s past, present and future. Who are the major debaters? How do they analyze China’s problems and figure out solutions? What are the main achievements and weaknesses of the Chinese intellectual debate and discourse? Chinese novelists also get involved in the China debate. However, their voices are rarely heard. This book argues that,  by dramatizing the diversities of ordinary social actors’ everyday languages, active discursive practices and enchanted local traditions, Chinese novelists do not merely illustrate the dominant liberal, the New Left and the New Confucian ideologies, but enrich the China debate and provide a “novel” approach to our understanding of modern China.    

• Chinese Literature
• Chinese Intellectual Discourse
• Dialogical Chinese Studies
• China Debate
• Literary Contribution

• Chinese Studies, University of Richmond, Richmond, USA

  Gengsong Gao

Gengsong Gao is Assistant Professor of Chinese Studies at the University of Richmond, where he teaches Chinese language courses and courses concerning modern and contemporary Chinese literature and culture. 

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