Utopia, where East and West meet: A comparative study of hybrid utopias in twentieth century Chinese and Western literature

This dissertation examines a group of hybrid utopias commonly characterized by a fusion of Eastern and Western thought within the imagination of ideal societies. We delineate the foreign elements in a mixed utopian thinking, and inquire how "the other side" is represented, observing problems that arise from combinations of East and West. Dealing with East-West utopian imagery in Western literature, this study suggests four modes of expression to define its major characteristics in representing the East. These four categories include: fantasization, referentiality, pragmatic integration, and complex transformation. Discussion of East-West utopias in modern Chinese literature places emphasis on the origin of these utopias from the socio-political climate of Westernization and on their absorption of Western forms of expression, which initiated a literary Westernization in modern Chinese literature. In the general surveys that constitute the second and the third chapter of this study, we also look at East-West dystopian thought, which represents an attitude in distinction to but in affiliation with the East-West utopian imagination. Beyond the more general criticism mentioned above, this dissertation specifically probes two individual works. Wu Woyao's New Story of the Stone (Xin Shitou ji, 1905-?) depicts a technotopia, "The State of Civilization," which upholds the Enlightenment conviction of scientific progress. Politically, Wu's utopia practices a peculiar "enlightened despotism" that incorporates Confucianism with Western ideology. James Hilton's Lost Horizon (1933) projects a paradise of mixed religion and belief: Shangri-La. This utopia highlights Buddhist "passionlessness" and the virtue of "moderation" in contrast to the competitive ethics of capitalism and Western rationalization. Wu Woyao and James Hilton, representative examples of intercultural influence, expand the utopian possibilities inherent in their respective national literatures by adapting foreign ideas. These two cases bear out the thesis that the role of foreign ideas cannot be neglected in the development of any national literature or culture.