| In the study of contemporary China, there is a logocentric bias that has placed great emphasis on the power of words as carriers of meaning and has therefore overlooked the existence and the significance of the visual. My dissertation analyzes how images—whether printed and embedded in texts or shown on big and small screens—have shaped, interpreted, and at times created dissenting spaces in Chinese modern culture. Because of the complex nature of images as artistic creations, political propaganda, consumer goods, and personal messages, in my research I combine literary studies, cultural history, and a visual culture perspective.; I analyze a variety of different cultural products that have never before been brought together to share the same exhibition space and, consequently, have not been received and interpreted as intrinsically connected. Through a selection of materials from literature, pictorials, feature films, documentary films, TV productions, and Internet images, I want to show that visual dissenters can be cultural insiders looking for alternative social or cultural spaces to oppose the dominant ideology or cultural outsiders hanging onto their exclusion as a form of passive resistance. In either case, these dissenters do not talk or preach about a revolution, but rather display or perform rebellious acts. Verbal dissent openly claims to be the force that can mobilize people and inspire and even organize revolutions. Visual dissent almost never turns its criticism into a pragmatic project; however, its uncompromising resistance demands our attention. |
