| This dissertation explores how transnational, national, and regional flows of culture (trans)formed conceptions of national identity as expressed in Chinese animated films from the 1940s through the late 1970s. Revolving around the various movements of films, studios, people, ideologies, and artistic styles across space, time, and genre, specific areas of investigation include the interaction of Chinese and Japanese animated films from the 1940s to early 1950s, the rise of ink-painting animated film in the early 1960s, and the representations of ethnic minorities and other marginalized groups during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). Conventional approaches tend to focus narrowly and statically on the unique formal features of Chinese animated film and argue for a monolithic and timeless notion of Chinese identity. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach that draws on travel/migration studies, film analysis, and art historical research, this dissertation utilizes a different framework by foregrounding transnational and regional undercurrents and their dynamic contestation with national trends in the international landscape of modernity. It seeks to unravel the contested relationship among national identities, politics, aesthetics, and imagination during a transformative historical period fraught with radical artistic movements, political revolutions, and national crises. |
