Trekking from Tibet, Sailing to Japan:
Sociopolitics Across East Asian Modern Literature and Film
Monograph in development
Description: Exploring the 21st-century East Asian national and regional dynamics among Tibet, Mainland China, Mongolia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, North Korea, South Korea, and Japan as expressed through Literature and Film
Part I: Hypertech Disconnect: Exploring WWII’s Afterlife in Modern Japanese Arts
Chapter 1:
“What Language Best Expresses Grief?”: Fragmentation, Polyphony, and Connection in Drive My Car (2021)
Chapter 2:
Japanese Ethnonationalism Gets Skinned Alive in the Mongolian Imaginary: Beasts Head for Home (1957) and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles (1997)
Chapter 3:
Hikikomori, Old Maids, and Shoplifters (2018): Finding the Self and Community in Japan’s “Relationless Society”
Chapter 4:
Okinawan Memory Resists American and Japanese Militarism: The Memory Police (1994) and In the Woods of Memory (2017)
Chapter 5:
National Nostalgia Interwoven with Ecocritical Anxieties: The Eternal Zero (2006) and Godzilla Minus One (2023)
Part II: North and South, Villages and Cities: Ideas of Unity in the Korean Peninsula
Chapter 6:
Spatialized Paranoia and Hysterical Hysteria: Korean Dis/Unity in The Wailing (2016), Parasite (2019), and Concrete Utopia (2023)
Chapter 7:
The Sane Person Must do Handstands in an Insane World: The Horror of Globalization, Translation, and Posthumanism in The Vegetarian (2007)
Chapter 8:
Brave Refugee, North Korean “Paris Hilton,” Conservative U.S. Activist: Deconstructing the Public Persona of Park Yeonmi
Chapter 9:
Korean Revenge from the Ancient Three Kingdoms to Modern Moral Economies in The Glory (2022) and Beef (2023- )
Chapter 10:
Neoliberal Contracts Versus Rural Harmonies: Next SoHee (2022) and Little Forest (2018)
Part III: Art and Political Feedback Loops in Chinese Works
Chapter 11:
Harem Soap Operas as Battle Royales Both On and Off the Screen: The Heterotopic Ruyi’s Royal Love in the Palace (2018)
Chapter 12:
CGI Blockbusters, Chinese Nationalism, and Ecosocial Sloganism: Tianrenheyi in The Wandering Earth (2019)
Chapter 13:
How the COVID-19 Quarantine led to the Author Fang Fang’s House Arrest: The Wuhan Diaries (2019), Memory Politics, Chinese State Media, and Nationalist Netizens
Chapter 14:
Chinese Evolutions of Confucian Filial Piety: The Yuan Dynasty, Maoist Model Plays, 1990s Scar Literature, and Modern Films & CCTV
Chapter 15:
Impossible Synchronicities in Borges and Yu Hua: “The Garden of Forking Paths” (1941) and “The Past and the Punishments” (1996)
Part IV: East Asia: China, Korea, Japan, Mongolia, Tibet, Hong Kong, and Taiwan
Chapter 16:
The Mongolian Ecosocial Views of the Shaman-Author Galsan Tschinag: Translating The Blue Sky (2006), The Grey Earth (2007), and The White Mountain
Chapter 17:
Breathtakingly Real: The Subtly Rebellious Films of Tibetan Filmmaker Pema Tseden (1969-2023)
Chapter 18:
China, South Korea, and Japan: East Asian Macbeths Defamiliarize Sociopolitics and Circumvent Censorship
Chapter 19:
East Asian Zombies, Ghosts, and the Living All Terrify Each Other: Dumplings (2004), Detention (2019), Kingdom (2021)
Chapter 20:
East Asian Queer Narratives Explore Synchronicity and Acceptance: Monster (2023), Stateless Beings (2012), and Kiss of the Rabbit God (2019)
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