Papers by Kun Xian Shen
Journal of Chinese Cinemas, 2024
This article reconsiders the mediation of urban noises and decadent music in Hou Hsiao-hsien's lo... more This article reconsiders the mediation of urban noises and decadent music in Hou Hsiao-hsien's long-overlooked film Daughter of the Nile (1987) under the dual contexts of noise control and popular entertainment in the late 1980s in Taiwan. It argues that the film embeds distinctive sounds in urban environments to create acousmatic soundscapes that are typically considered ambient noises in mainstream discourse. It further observes that the film provides a critical entry point to the historical debates over the definition and governance of noise at the time, complicating an overdetermined concept throughout the history of sonic perception. Offering a framework to understand the film's mediation of Taipei's urban soundscapes, the article suggests that the film implies an ethics of listening that calls for a more careful attention to the multifarious sounds that reflect the power dynamics between the authority and the residents in the city.
Recently, there has been a growing trend to put Taiwanese New Cinema in dialogue with the history... more Recently, there has been a growing trend to put Taiwanese New Cinema in dialogue with the history of global film movements, ranging from Taiwanese scholar Robert Chen's (2010) attempt to connect to Italian Neorealism to James Tweedie's mapping of the global New Waves that began in France (2014). While transnational comparisons certainly hold the advantage of dismissing cultural essentialism and nationalist identity politics and paying more attention to styles and aesthetics, as Flannery Wilson (2014) points out, "films that appear transnational at first glance often carry nationalist agendas," and terms like Shih Shu-mei's transnational structure of "Sinophone studies" or Michelle Bloom's "Sino-French" cinema have their limits especially when the latter threatens to neglect the different nationalities at play in the Chinese-speaking (or Sinophone) world. Cautiously taking this balance between national politics and transnational studies into consideration, the paper seeks to critically examine award-winning director Leon Dai's Cannot Live Without You (2009) and understand its position within the commercial revival of "New Taiwan Cinema" after Cape No. 7 (2008). The second half of the paper addresses the rising trend of what it calls -Taiwanese Social Movement Film,‖ including other films like Girlfriend, Boyfriend (2012) and Elena (2015), proposing that unlike Andre Bazin's philosophy of -faith in reality,‖ Dai and
Even before the rise of Sinophone studies in the academe, Singaporean cinema had always been a mi... more Even before the rise of Sinophone studies in the academe, Singaporean cinema had always been a minoritized subject within the studies of Chinese-language or Sinophone cinema. Since Singapore is categorized as a Southeast Asian multilingual country, films produced in such context are often neglected in Chinese-language cinema studies based both on monolingual and ethno-national logics (e.g. scholarly books that often separate such films into chapters entitled China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan). In this paper, however, I hope to look to the studies of Singaporean film production context as well as its multilingual content in order to, on one hand, break away from the limit of Sinophone studies" overemphasis on a single language, and on the other, radically question the separation of East Asia and Southeast Asia derived from regional studies.
As a frontier for many immigrants of diverse ethnicities or nationalities, San Francisco has long... more As a frontier for many immigrants of diverse ethnicities or nationalities, San Francisco has long been a space that witnesses or even inspires many identity-based social movements, including Asian American struggles rooted in Chinatown. In contrast to what outsiders may imagine, however, these ethnic movements have never been coherent, and the term “Chinese American,” along with the “imagined community” it conjures up, becomes highly indefinable when put under different contexts. In fact, as my article points out, the tension of racial politics within Chinatown itself rises and falls as the relationship between the U.S., PRC, and ROC changes. In order to explore this split of identification of Asian, especially Chinese, American people, the article examines the seminal film Chan is Missing, directed by Wayne Wang, a story featuring two Chinese American taxi drivers as they roam around San Francisco in search of their acquaintance Chan.
Nostalgia is a profitable desire. Defined as a postmodern cultural phenomenon by Frederic Jameso... more Nostalgia is a profitable desire. Defined as a postmodern cultural phenomenon by Frederic Jameson, nostalgia is believed to be the reason why an objectified and shallow history is the main drive of symbolic economy in late capitalistic society. In Taiwan, corporate capitalism and government now go hand in hand to instill this craze for history into cultural production industry, including historical tourism. Hou Hsiao-hsien’s A City of Sadness and Wei Te-Sheng’s Cape No. 7 and Kano already prove capable of generating great enthusiasm for (re)visiting Japanese buildings in the colonial period. Exactly what is working as factor that set “the past” in motion?
This essay aims to analyze this phenomenon both historically and theoretically. First, it will try to grapple with the birth of modern tourism in Taiwan by revisiting Su Shuo-Bin’s The Invisible and Visible Taipei and Lu Shao Li’s Exhibiting Taiwan, utilizing their structure to portray the power dynamics within “the invention of tradition” (Hobsbawn) and the creation of urban space and imperial buildings (now historical monuments). Then, it will carefully read several artistic productions that expose the existence of gaze and discipline between colonized people and colonizer through portrayals of Japanese imperial buildings, including Chen Chengbo’s paintings and ChthoniC’s music video. Finally, it will return to contemporary tourism, arguing that former imperial gaze has evolved into what John Urry describes as “tourist gaze” by once again fetishizing imperial buildings as profitable historical monuments. It will also try to propose, however, that capitalism is not the only factor that “motivates” such phenomenon. Taiwanese nationalism, which is under the danger of being essentialized as a beautified Japaneseness as opposed to the Chineseness of KMT government and PRC, is also looming over this feverish nostalgia.
Thesis Chapters by Kun Xian Shen
Cinema of Distance: Midi Z’s “Homecoming Trilogy” and the Borders of the Postcolonial and the Sinophone, 2018
This thesis investigates the representations of the Burmese Chinese characters’ failed inter-Asia... more This thesis investigates the representations of the Burmese Chinese characters’ failed inter-Asian migrations in Midi Z’s Homecoming Trilogy—including Return to Burma (2011), Poor Folk (2012), and Ice Poison (2014)—by discussing this trilogy as a “cinema of distance.” Through this discussion, this thesis suggests that Midi Z’s films not only challenge narratives of linear migration, but also push at the epistemological borders of postcolonial studies and Sinophone studies.
Foreign Literature Studies by Kun Xian Shen
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Papers by Kun Xian Shen
This essay aims to analyze this phenomenon both historically and theoretically. First, it will try to grapple with the birth of modern tourism in Taiwan by revisiting Su Shuo-Bin’s The Invisible and Visible Taipei and Lu Shao Li’s Exhibiting Taiwan, utilizing their structure to portray the power dynamics within “the invention of tradition” (Hobsbawn) and the creation of urban space and imperial buildings (now historical monuments). Then, it will carefully read several artistic productions that expose the existence of gaze and discipline between colonized people and colonizer through portrayals of Japanese imperial buildings, including Chen Chengbo’s paintings and ChthoniC’s music video. Finally, it will return to contemporary tourism, arguing that former imperial gaze has evolved into what John Urry describes as “tourist gaze” by once again fetishizing imperial buildings as profitable historical monuments. It will also try to propose, however, that capitalism is not the only factor that “motivates” such phenomenon. Taiwanese nationalism, which is under the danger of being essentialized as a beautified Japaneseness as opposed to the Chineseness of KMT government and PRC, is also looming over this feverish nostalgia.
Thesis Chapters by Kun Xian Shen
Foreign Literature Studies by Kun Xian Shen
This essay aims to analyze this phenomenon both historically and theoretically. First, it will try to grapple with the birth of modern tourism in Taiwan by revisiting Su Shuo-Bin’s The Invisible and Visible Taipei and Lu Shao Li’s Exhibiting Taiwan, utilizing their structure to portray the power dynamics within “the invention of tradition” (Hobsbawn) and the creation of urban space and imperial buildings (now historical monuments). Then, it will carefully read several artistic productions that expose the existence of gaze and discipline between colonized people and colonizer through portrayals of Japanese imperial buildings, including Chen Chengbo’s paintings and ChthoniC’s music video. Finally, it will return to contemporary tourism, arguing that former imperial gaze has evolved into what John Urry describes as “tourist gaze” by once again fetishizing imperial buildings as profitable historical monuments. It will also try to propose, however, that capitalism is not the only factor that “motivates” such phenomenon. Taiwanese nationalism, which is under the danger of being essentialized as a beautified Japaneseness as opposed to the Chineseness of KMT government and PRC, is also looming over this feverish nostalgia.