Demise of the False Utopia: China’s Post-socialist Transition in Han Song’s Red Star Over America
Guangzhao, Lyu;
(2022)
Demise of the False Utopia: China’s Post-socialist Transition in Han Song’s Red Star Over America.
Science Fiction Studies
, 49
(1)
pp. 100-119.
10.1353/sfs.2022.0007.
Abstract
The eeriness in Han Song’s stories has made him a unique writer in the New Wave of Chinese science fiction. His “eerie” writings blend the imageries of utopia and dystopia, blurring the boundaries between “good” and “bad” places and creating a new form of utopianism that can account for the rapid social transition in China since the 1990s. This essay focuses on one of Han Song’s earlier novels, Red Star over America (2000), and interrogates the seemingly utopian China, governed by the omnipotent artificial intelligence Amanduo, through the lens of Moylan’s “critical utopia” and Bakhtin’s “adventure chronotope.” The collapse of Amanduo reflects the decline of “top-down” elitist discourse in China, developed during the New Enlightenment of the 1980s. Han’s protagonist’s hesitant journey in the post-Amanduo world in search of a new order represents China’s ideological transition during the post-socialist era.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Demise of the False Utopia: China’s Post-socialist Transition in Han Song’s Red Star Over America |
| DOI: | 10.1353/sfs.2022.0007 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1353/sfs.2022.0007 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. |
| UCL classification: | UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities > SELCS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10151125 |
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