Speaker
Prof. LIN Zheng
Professor LIN Zheng is Deputy Dean of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities and Associate Professor of Department of Chinese Language and Literature at Sun Yat-sen University. She is a scholar of modern Chinese literature, with expertise in representations of urban space in literary and cultural production. Prof. LIN is the author of Park Beijing: Cultural Production and Literary Imagination (1860-1937) (published by Peking University Press) and her current research examines the cultural politics of Guangzhou’s urban villages, analyzing how these transitional spaces reflect broader sociocultural transformations in contemporary China.
Event Details
This talk will compare the representation of the old Workers’ Villages in Northeast China and the Urban Villages in the Pearl River Delta. Both being “rural areas within cities,” they witnessed two phases of urbanization in the PRC, two competing visions of urban modernization, and the emergence of two kinds of workers: the working class and migrant workers. The decline of the “Rust Belt” and the rise of the “Sun Belt” are two sides of the same coin in the transition from Socialist China to Post-Socialist China since the reform and opening-up policy. Although both spaces represent marginal urban experiences, they have fostered pioneering art and literature. In recent years, with the “Northeast Renaissance,” the post-80s generation has sought to redeem the dignity of the working class and the glory of the Northeast. By contrast, although Urban Villages are seen as the “dark side of the Sun Belt,” they are actually self-disciplined, anarchic urban organisms that have nurtured vibrant art centered on migrant workers. Through this lens, we can glimpse the top-down vision of Socialist urban modernity, as well as the bottom-up reflections and responses from individuals.
Enquires
Centre for China Studies
Enquiry: ccs@cuhk.edu.hk/ 3943-4392
