Whither Class?

This book argues that the revolutionary, anti-revolutionary, counter-revolutionary, and post-revolutionary dialectics in modern Chinese history since the early-20th century characterizes modern and contemporary Chinese literature the most. Central to these dialectics are issues of class. The book contends that one cannot fully understand modern and contemporary Chinese literature without understanding the class character of Chinese revolutionary and counter-revolutionary struggles, including literary practices and their various contradictions. Considering literature via the notion of “the event” and focusing on three specific historical junctures, this project explores how, as a major cultural form, literature has played an outsize role in China’s struggle for liberation and quest for modernity. It highlights the need to understand class and the extent to which it shapes literary and artistic forms and expressions as well as the on-going debates over the relationship between politics and aesthetics.