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OverviewToday, Chinese characters are described as a national treasure, the core of the nation's civilizational identity. Yet for nearly half of the twentieth century, reformers waged war on the Chinese script. They declared it an archaic hindrance to modernization, portraying the ancient system of writing as a roadblock to literacy and therefore science and democracy. Movements spanning the political spectrum proposed abandonment of characters and alphabetization of Chinese writing, although in the end the Communist Party opted for character simplification. Chinese Grammatology traces the origins, transmutations, and containment of this script revolution to provide a groundbreaking account of its formative effects on Chinese literature and culture, and lasting implications for the encounter between the alphabetic and nonalphabet worlds. Yurou Zhong explores the growth of competing Romanization and Latinization movements aligned with the clashing Nationalists and Communists. She finds surprising affinities between alphabetic reform and modern Chinese literary movements and examines the politics of literacy programs and mass education against the backdrop of war and revolution. Zhong places the Chinese script revolution in the global context of a phonocentric dominance that privileges phonetic writing, contending that the eventual retention of characters constituted an anti-ethnocentric, anti-imperial critique that coincided with postwar decolonization movements and predated the emergence of Deconstructionism. By revealing the consequences of one of the biggest linguistic experiments in history, Chinese Grammatology provides an ambitious rethinking of the origins of Chinese literary modernity and the politics of the science of writing. Full Product DetailsAuthor: Yurou ZhongPublisher: Columbia University Press Imprint: Columbia University Press ISBN: 9780231192620ISBN 10: 0231192622 Pages: 296 Publication Date: 12 November 2019 Audience: Professional and scholarly , College/higher education , Professional & Vocational , Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly Format: Hardback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: Manufactured on demand  We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier. Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Note on Romanization Introduction: Voiceless China and Its Phonocentric Turn Part I: Provenance 1. The Beginning and the End of Alphabetic Universalism Part II: Transmutations 2. Phonocentric Antinomies 3. Can Subaltern Workers Write? 4. Reinventing Children Part III: Containment 5. Toward a Chinese Grammatology Epilogue: The Last Custodian Notes Selected Bibliography IndexReviewsThis long overdue study of competing twentieth-century efforts to modernize Chinese writing goes far beyond the origins of pinyin to include a series of compelling stories about all-but-forgotten movements that will fascinate anyone interested in linguistics, Chinese literature, and the history of modernity. Deeply researched and carefully presented, Chinese Grammatology is a page-turner for culture nerds, which makes a persuasive case for the influence of the ideologies of script reform on the evolution of modern Chinese literature. A must-read for anyone interested in cultural China. -- Timothy Billings, Middlebury College One of the most innovative, exemplary, and deeply researched monographs in modern Chinese literary studies I have seen for quite some time. -- Andrew F. Jones, University of California, Berkeley Yurou Zhong ably chronicles the tumultuous twentieth century of the millennia-old Chinese writing system. The concluding appeal to a `nonidentitarian coexistence' of diverse writing systems within and around Chinese echoes ideals from the era of China's greatest cosmopolitan influence. -- Haun Saussy, University of Chicago This long overdue study of competing twentieth-century efforts to modernize Chinese writing goes far beyond the origins of pinyin to include a series of compelling stories about all-but-forgotten movements that will fascinate anyone interested in linguistics, Chinese literature, and the history of modernity. Deeply researched and carefully presented, Chinese Grammatology is a page-turner for culture nerds, which makes a persuasive case for the influence of the ideologies of script reform on the evolution of modern Chinese literature. A must-read for anyone interested in cultural China. -- Timothy Billings, Middlebury College One of the most innovative, exemplary, and deeply researched monographs in modern Chinese literary studies I have seen for quite some time. -- Andrew F. Jones, University of California, Berkeley One of the most innovative, exemplary, and deeply researched monographs in modern Chinese literary studies I have seen for quite some time.--Andrew F. Jones, University of California, Berkeley This long overdue study of competing twentieth-century efforts to modernize Chinese writing goes far beyond the origins of pinyin to include a series of compelling stories about all-but-forgotten movements that will fascinate anyone interested in linguistics, Chinese literature, and the history of modernity. Deeply researched and carefully presented, Chinese Grammatology is a page-turner for culture nerds, which makes a persuasive case for the influence of the ideologies of script reform on the evolution of modern Chinese literature. A must-read for anyone interested in cultural China. -- Timothy Billings, Middlebury One of the most innovative, exemplary, and deeply researched monographs in modern Chinese literary studies I have seen for quite some time. -- Andrew F. Jones, University of California, Berkeley Author InformationYurou Zhong is assistant professor of East Asian studies at the University of Toronto. Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |
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