Imagining Peripherier In Modern China

Since China was forced into the world system of nation-states,the Chinese identity has been so greatly changed.The thesis studies the imaginaions of china on its way to modernization from the perspective of narrations of Chinese peripheries.I select some literary works about Yunnan as the main research object in order to reveal the various dimensions of the imaginations of China in modernization,and how a hegemonic imagination is constracted with power relation from them.The first chapter takes imagination of peripheries as a subject,and carries out a core theme that studies of the peripheries from Chinese identity.With the form of a nation-state and the transmit of anthropology,a new perspective of peripheries and minority was started.The Yunnan writing from1917to now were divided into four periods.The second chapter take the texts of The Left and Southwest United Univerity before1949,from that class,nation-state and modernity into narrations of Yunnan.Chapter three mainly discusses the narrations from1949to1976that ethnic group is the core of narration in the period. The image of minority go into the field of main culture,Liu Sanjie and Ashima were the most famous example.Chapter four take narrations of Yunnan into the context of cultural reflection in1980s. I take several influential novelists and artists for example-Zhang Nuanxin,A Cheng,Cheng Kaige,Bai hua,to discuss localization of the imagination of "Cultural China" whose principle is periphery as the centre".Chapter five take Shangri-1a and the valley of gospel as the analysis object explain the influence of consumerism after1989,some intellectual take Yunnan as Utopia.In conclusion,only contact with culture practice of peripherier into modern China and the interaction of them,we can understand deeply about "modernization","nation","Chinese identity".