Imaginations And Representations:the "Westness" In The Popular Culture Of Contemporary China(2008-)

Around 2008,China's perspectives and attitudes toward "The West" have been modifying,corresponding to the emergence of the "China on Rise""Chinese Model" discourses and the transformation of global geopolitics.Under the urgent demand of rethinking and re-understanding the "Sino-West" relationship,this dissertation aims at analyzing the imaginations and representations of "The West" in contemporary China,yet avoiding the approaches of existing theories of "Occidentalism",performing a cultural study in which the research objects are placed in the vision of China's cultural subjectivity.On the basis of the excavation of three "traditional"(ancient,modern and The reform and opening up 30 years)contents in current discourses,with the assistance of "structures of feeling",using "ideal type" as the academic instrument,this dissertation tries to grasp the distinctive,temporary stability of relevant significance,hence opening the exploration of social changing power and morphological structure of today's China.The full text contains "Introduction","Conclusion" and main argumentative body consists of four chapters.Therein,Introduction overviews the research status as well as existing problems of current theories regarding to "Occidentalism" in international academia,briefly reviews the historical evolution of the concepts of "The West" among Chinese people from ancient time to modern time,and introduce the objects as well as research methods of this study;Chapter One is a retrospect,through Cultural analysis of "River Elegy" and "Beijingers in New York",of the image of "The West" in the Popular Culture in the early and mid-term of China's Reform and Opening Up period;Chapter Two and Chapter Three examine the cultural texts related to 2010 Shanghai Expo and 2012 London Olympic Games,focusing on the representation strategies and discourse politics of "The West" by the official(Shanghai EXPO organizers)and the media(Global Times&Southern Weekend);Chapter Four analyzes four films("The Flowers of the War" "Back to 1942" "American Dreams in China" "Finding Mr.Right"),discussing the significance and instrumentality of "The West"/Westerner in the "national disaster narrative" and "modern story";Finally,Conclusion,serves as a generalization and summarization,also brings a furthermore thinking in which previous discoveries are positioned in a bigger historical version.The chosen "ideal types" are constructed in multidimensional logical frames,which are the cultural patterns from "the official" to "the society"to "the folk",the media items from TV to exhibitions to newspapers to films,the time order since 2008 till now,contain the unique appearance as well as various bedding of the "Westness" in the popular culture to be analyzed.Taking Semiotics and Discourse Analysis as two major research methods,combined with other research approaches in the academic field of Anthropology,Journalism,Communication,Urban Studies,Film Studies,etc.,this dissertation is an interdisciplinary Cultural Study.The dissertation finds out that,the imaginations and representations of"The West" appear a remarkable break-point,which implies the historical fracture(but not disconnect)and breakthrough in understanding;"The change" as well as "the same" of "Westness",reflect the China's progress in its "own history";The Re-establishment of "Westness" is a reference to China's up-to-date round of self-reconstruction,and will dance to the tune of the further expansion of China's subjectivity in new world order.