| It is considered the task of the historian to carry out the grand project of constructing history. Oral records, diaries, treaties, declarations, maps, court papers, and a seemingly endless array of data and documents are compiled, assessed, and processed into that elusive entity we call history. Most often we assume it comes in the guise of academic monographs, research papers, and film documentaries---but history can come in many forms. Literature and film are often considered outside the umbrella that encompasses serious historical inquiry, yet it is precisely these creative media that provide perhaps the most powerful, direct, and humanistic route by which to approach history. And due to the far-reaching impact of literature and film in popular culture, it is also these media that reach the widest audiences and have the most profound effect on shaping people's perceptions and conceptions of history.; This is a study of how history in modern China has been constructed, reconstructed, and often deconstructed through the lens of popular culture, with special attention to literature and film. The twentieth century has been a tumultuous time for China, filled with incessant political unrest, mass social movements, and atrocities. The focus here is on some of the darkest moments of modern Chinese history in an exploration of how historical violence and atrocity have been imagined by writers and filmmakers. The works considered are structured around a series of five specific historical incidents: the Nanjing Massacre (1937--1938), the February 28 Incident (1947), the Cultural Revolution (1966--1976), the Tiananmen Square Massacre (1989), and Hong Kong's Handover to the mainland (1997).; History may provide the subtext, but the focus of this dissertation is always the text and what it can tell us about how we remember---and sometimes forget---the past. I call into question our traditional notions of literature, history, and the boundaries between them, presenting a comprehensive survey of how atrocity has been conceptualized through literature and film and what these representations tell us about history, memory, and violence. Special attention is paid to the place of population movement and diaspora in atrocity, which plays a key role in each event discussed, as well as Lu Xun's legacy of violence, in which the seeds for much of this study lie. This dissertation also aims to provide a literary history of atrocity and mass violence in modern China, mapping the development and formation of a new body of atrocity fiction in modern China. |
