One Kind of Reality: Mapping out Chinese “Postmodernism”

Abstract

This paper outlines the literary context and developments in post-1980s China, and seeks to map out Chinese postmodernism. It discusses the problematic existence of "Chinese postmodernism" by taking into account the more general postmodernity of Chinese society. The result is a view of postmodernism that is flexible, critical, historically and culturally situated and ethically sensitive without being dogmatic or propagandistic. This in turn will offer a basis for further study of "postmodernisms" as they have developed both in the countries of the concept's origin and elsewhere.