Cities of fantasy: the construction of the desiring subject in urban China

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dc.contributor.authorStetar, Douglas Andrew
dc.contributor.supervisorKing, Richard
dc.date.accessioned2016-04-27T14:50:28Z
dc.date.available2016-04-27T14:50:28Z
dc.date.copyright2016en_US
dc.date.issued2016-04-27
dc.degree.departmentDepartment of Pacific and Asian Studies
dc.degree.levelMaster of Arts M.A.en_US
dc.description.abstractRaymond Williams argues that a community’s cultural texts naturally draw upon its lived experience, and are thus a trustworthy expression of life within that community. This thesis explores the subject positions expressed in two contemporary texts—Wang Yuan’s Lipstick (又 红), and Ning Ying’s I Love Beijing (夏日暖洋洋)—to understand how urban Chinese individuals experience and comprehend the transformations convulsing their cities. To facilitate this, my primary goal in this thesis is to build a theoretical framework that uses the psychoanalytic work of Jacques Lacan and Slavoj Žižek to create the concept of the fantasy construction of the desiring subject. Using this concept, and drawing on two aspects of the cultural theories of Walter Benjamin—his heavily citational methodology and his theory of the flâneur—I examine the role of fantasy in the construction of contemporary urban Chinese individuals as desiring subjects.en_US
dc.description.proquestcode0305 0295en_US
dc.description.proquestemailstetard@me.comen_US
dc.description.scholarlevelGraduateen_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1828/7203
dc.languageEnglisheng
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.rightsAvailable to the World Wide Weben_US
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ca/*
dc.subjectChinaen_US
dc.subjectJacques Lacanen_US
dc.subjectSlavoj Žižeken_US
dc.subjectRaymond Williamsen_US
dc.subjectWalter Benjaminen_US
dc.subjectsubject positionen_US
dc.subjectidentityen_US
dc.subjecturban subjectivityen_US
dc.subjectdesireen_US
dc.subjectfantasyen_US
dc.subjectNing Yingen_US
dc.subjectWang Yuanen_US
dc.titleCities of fantasy: the construction of the desiring subject in urban Chinaen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US

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