New communication and information technologies provide distinct
challenges and possibilities for the Chinese script, which, unlike
alphabetic or other phonetic scripts, relies on multiple signifying
principles. In recent decades, this multiplicity has generated a rich
corpus of reflection and experimentation in literature, film, visual and
performance art, and design and architecture, within both China and
different parts of the West.
Approaching this history from a variety of alternative theoretical
perspectives, Beyond Sinology reflects on the Chinese script to pinpoint
the multiple connections between languages, scripts, and medial
expressions and cultural and national identities. Through a complex
study of intercultural representations, exchanges, and tensions, the
text focuses on the concrete "scripting" of identity and alterity,
advancing a new understanding of the links between identity and medium
and a critique of articulations that rely on single, monolithic, and
univocal definitions of writing.
Chinese writing--with its history of divergent readings in Chinese and
non-Chinese contexts, with its current reinvention in the age of new
media and globalization--can teach us how to read and construct
mediality and cultural identity in interculturally responsible ways and
also how to scrutinize, critique, and yet appreciate and enjoy the
powerful multi-medial creativity embodied in writing.
