Spectacular China: Performing Pessoptimism in 21st Century China
Date
2019-04
Authors
Advisors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Repository Usage Stats
views
downloads
Abstract
This paper uses three Chinese cultural performances as a lens through which to study how China has navigated the global system of Western modernity in order to present a successful image in the Chinese state’s CCTV Chinese New Year Galas and 2008 Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony. I draw from Guy Debord’s theory of the Spectacle to unpack the implicit ideologies which permeate these spectacular performances. Beyond understanding the events’ role as propaganda, my work attempts to read the state’s unnamed ideologies. The Spectacle of modernity reveals itself throughout the cultural performances in the forms of liberal democracy, universalism and capitalism. I read China’s ideology of modernity as an application of William Callahan’s theory of Chinese “pessoptimism,” indicative of an implicit standard of Westernization as modernity caused by China’s history of colonial humiliations at the hands of Western powers.
Type
Department
Description
Provenance
Subjects
Citation
Permalink
Citation
Zhu, Samuel (2019). Spectacular China: Performing Pessoptimism in 21st Century China. Honors thesis, Duke University. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/18560.
Except where otherwise noted, student scholarship that was shared on DukeSpace after 2009 is made available to the public under a Creative Commons Attribution / Non-commercial / No derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) license. All rights in student work shared on DukeSpace before 2009 remain with the author and/or their designee, whose permission may be required for reuse.