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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Shanzhai: Deconstruction in Chinese

Shanzhai: Deconstruction in Chinese

Han, Byung-Chul
Hurd, Philippa

Paperback

Series: Untimely Meditations, Book 8

PhilosophyArt Criticism & TheoryGeneral Sociology

Currently unavailable to order

ISBN10: 0262534363
ISBN13: 9780262534369
Publisher: Mit Pr
Published: Oct 6 2017
Pages: 104
Weight: 0.20
Height: 0.20 Width: 4.50 Depth: 7.10
Language: English
Tracing the thread of decreation in Chinese thought, from constantly changing classical masterpieces to fake cell phones that are better than the original.

Shanzhai is a Chinese neologism that means fake, originally coined to describe knock-off cell phones marketed under such names as Nokir and Samsing. These cell phones were not crude forgeries but multifunctional, stylish, and as good as or better than the originals. Shanzhai has since spread into other parts of Chinese life, with shanzhai books, shanzhai politicians, shanzhai stars. There is a shanzhai Harry Potter: Harry Potter and the Porcelain Doll, in which Harry takes on his nemesis Yandomort. In the West, this would be seen as piracy, or even desecration, but in Chinese culture, originals are continually transformed--deconstructed. In this volume in the Untimely Meditations series, Byung-Chul Han traces the thread of deconstruction, or decreation, in Chinese thought, from ancient masterpieces that invite inscription and transcription to Maoism--a kind a shanzhai Marxism, Han writes.

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