Description

Book Synopsis
The story of The White Snake is one of the ""four great narratives"" of China and yet it is almost unknown in the West. The Global White Snake is a major, accessible contribution to our knowledge of the story, its traditional interpretations and its importance throughout history.

Table of Contents
  • Acknowledgements
  • List of Figures
  • Chapter 1. Introduction to White Snake Legends
  • Gender and Species, Media and Politics
  • Metamorphoses and Regenerations
  • Legends of the White Snake
  • The Power of Transmigration
  • Aspirations in the Remaking of the Legends
  • Theoretical Implications
  • Part I. White Snake at the Turn of the Twentieth Century
  • Chapter 2. The White Snake Problem versus The White Snake Industry
  • The White Snake Problem
  • Inspirations from Kentucky
  • Mystery of the White Snake
  • Hangchow, the “City of Heaven”
  • The White Snake Industry
  • New White Snake Performances, 1870s to 1920s
  • The Popularity of jingju, tanci, and yueju
  • Stage Performance, Urban Gossip, Print Culture, and Intellectual Lamentations
  • Sounding the White Snake: Shaping New Media, New Practice, and New
  • Sensibilities
  • Rong Stage Dominates White Snake Performances
  • Concluding Remarks: The Fall of the Pagoda and the Burning of the Monastery
  • Chapter 3. Fall of the Pagoda and Rise of the White Snake: Visualization and Canonization
  • Fall of the Pagoda and the Visualization of a Vanished Past
  • Bricks, Scriptures, and Visuality: Relics from and Memories of the Thunder Peak
  • Legend, Art Photography, and War Drawing: Timely Journalism and Chinese Popular Imagination
  • Shadows of the Pagoda: Coming to Terms with the Fall through Visual and Textual Representations
  • The Rise of the White Snake and Canonization of “The White Snake Modern”
  • Lu Xun’s Verdict and The Righteous Snake on the Silver Screen
  • The Pagoda in the Film
  • Concluding Remarks: The White Snake Modern
  • Part II Profound Humanity of the Nonhuman during the Cold War
  • Chapter 4. The White Snake Legend in Postwar Japanese Cinema
  • Exquisite Paradise and Forbidden Love in Mizoguchi’s Ugetsu
  • Between Light and Shadow: Infinite Shades of Gray
  • Sound and Look of a Lady Wakasa Film: Pottery, Water, and Mutual Enchantment
  • White Pearl, Red Scarf, and “The Witchcraft of Love” in Byaku fujin no yoren
  • Red Scarf, Manifested Desire, and Significance of Color
  • Special Effects and Technologies of the “Witchcraft of Love”
  • From Hong Kong to Southeast Asia
  • Flowers, Animals, and Humans: Animating the White Snake Legend in Hakujaden
  • From Live-action to Animation
  • “Disney of the East” and Connections between China and Japan
  • Concluding Remarks: A Token of Love
  • Chapter 5. Reconfiguring the White Snake in Korean Cinema in an Inter-Asian Context
  • Sino-Korean Cinematic Connections
  • Shin Sang-ok and the 1960 Madam White Snake
  • The Shadow of Ugetsu and Holding Hands at First Sight
  • Dance to Seduce and Lovers’ Chat in a Moonlit Garden
  • Mutual Love and Devotion, and the Humanity of the Nonhuman
  • Humanity Aided by Special Effects
  • Shin’s Forgotten Second Attempt at a “White Snake” Film: Snake Woman in 1969
  • A Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan Coproduction? Love of the White Snake in 1978
  • The Taiwan Connection in the Context of a Hong Kong-Singapore Cinematic Matrix
  • Concluding Remarks: The Korean Connection in an Inter-Asian Context
  • Part III. The Specter of the Past in Contemporary Popular Culture
  • Chapter 6. Dancing White Snake, Writing Green Snake: Reconfiguring the Legend in Mainland China and Hong Kong
  • Writing and Dancing, the Text and the Body
  • The Expressiveness of the Hybrid Body and the Iconoclasm of the Green Snake
  • Writing Women of China
  • A Dancing White Snake: Centered on the “Untold Stories”
  • Writing, Dancing, and the Cultural Revolution as Memory and Imagination
  • Concluding Remarks: Lingering Echoes
  • Chapter 7. The White Snake Legend in the United States in the Twenty-First Century:
  • Opera, Drama, and Digital Video
  • From Chinese Legend to Pulitzer-Prize Winning Western Opera: Madame White Snake
  • Green Snake the Storyteller
  • Righteousness against Love, Truth against Freedom
  • The Singaporean and Mainland Chinese Origins
  • The Powers and Possibilities of Mary Zimmerman’s The White Snake
  • The Wuzhen Experience
  • More Inspirations from Kentucky Students
  • A Female Writer of Socialist China: Zhao Qingge and Her 1956 Novel
  • The CTC Production in Washington D. C.
  • Poetry, Photography, and Fashion: Digital Challenges from Indrani
  • Chapter 8. Nothing Ever Dies: The Eternal Bodies of the White Snake
  • Korean Webtoon Lady White and Her Afterlife in Chinese
  • The Return of the Powerful Hybrid in the 2019 Internet Drama Legend of White Snake
  • Queering an Icon, Becoming a Demon in the 2019 Animation White Snake: The Legend Begins
  • Everlasting Bodily Memory: From the 1992 New Legend of Madame White Snake to the 2016 Star of Tomorrow
  • The Bodies of the Green Snake and the White Snake
  • Concluding Remarks: The Multiplicity and Openness of the Eternal Bodies of the Snake Women
  • Notes
  • Selected Chronological List of White Snake Texts
  • Selected Bibliography
  • Glossary
  • Index

The Global White Snake

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A Paperback / softback by Liang Luo

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    Publisher: The University of Michigan Press
    Publication Date: 30/08/2021
    ISBN13: 9780472038602, 978-0472038602
    ISBN10: 472038605
    Also in:
    Myths & Legends Theatre studies

    Description

    Book Synopsis
    The story of The White Snake is one of the ""four great narratives"" of China and yet it is almost unknown in the West. The Global White Snake is a major, accessible contribution to our knowledge of the story, its traditional interpretations and its importance throughout history.

    Table of Contents
    • Acknowledgements
    • List of Figures
    • Chapter 1. Introduction to White Snake Legends
    • Gender and Species, Media and Politics
    • Metamorphoses and Regenerations
    • Legends of the White Snake
    • The Power of Transmigration
    • Aspirations in the Remaking of the Legends
    • Theoretical Implications
    • Part I. White Snake at the Turn of the Twentieth Century
    • Chapter 2. The White Snake Problem versus The White Snake Industry
    • The White Snake Problem
    • Inspirations from Kentucky
    • Mystery of the White Snake
    • Hangchow, the “City of Heaven”
    • The White Snake Industry
    • New White Snake Performances, 1870s to 1920s
    • The Popularity of jingju, tanci, and yueju
    • Stage Performance, Urban Gossip, Print Culture, and Intellectual Lamentations
    • Sounding the White Snake: Shaping New Media, New Practice, and New
    • Sensibilities
    • Rong Stage Dominates White Snake Performances
    • Concluding Remarks: The Fall of the Pagoda and the Burning of the Monastery
    • Chapter 3. Fall of the Pagoda and Rise of the White Snake: Visualization and Canonization
    • Fall of the Pagoda and the Visualization of a Vanished Past
    • Bricks, Scriptures, and Visuality: Relics from and Memories of the Thunder Peak
    • Legend, Art Photography, and War Drawing: Timely Journalism and Chinese Popular Imagination
    • Shadows of the Pagoda: Coming to Terms with the Fall through Visual and Textual Representations
    • The Rise of the White Snake and Canonization of “The White Snake Modern”
    • Lu Xun’s Verdict and The Righteous Snake on the Silver Screen
    • The Pagoda in the Film
    • Concluding Remarks: The White Snake Modern
    • Part II Profound Humanity of the Nonhuman during the Cold War
    • Chapter 4. The White Snake Legend in Postwar Japanese Cinema
    • Exquisite Paradise and Forbidden Love in Mizoguchi’s Ugetsu
    • Between Light and Shadow: Infinite Shades of Gray
    • Sound and Look of a Lady Wakasa Film: Pottery, Water, and Mutual Enchantment
    • White Pearl, Red Scarf, and “The Witchcraft of Love” in Byaku fujin no yoren
    • Red Scarf, Manifested Desire, and Significance of Color
    • Special Effects and Technologies of the “Witchcraft of Love”
    • From Hong Kong to Southeast Asia
    • Flowers, Animals, and Humans: Animating the White Snake Legend in Hakujaden
    • From Live-action to Animation
    • “Disney of the East” and Connections between China and Japan
    • Concluding Remarks: A Token of Love
    • Chapter 5. Reconfiguring the White Snake in Korean Cinema in an Inter-Asian Context
    • Sino-Korean Cinematic Connections
    • Shin Sang-ok and the 1960 Madam White Snake
    • The Shadow of Ugetsu and Holding Hands at First Sight
    • Dance to Seduce and Lovers’ Chat in a Moonlit Garden
    • Mutual Love and Devotion, and the Humanity of the Nonhuman
    • Humanity Aided by Special Effects
    • Shin’s Forgotten Second Attempt at a “White Snake” Film: Snake Woman in 1969
    • A Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan Coproduction? Love of the White Snake in 1978
    • The Taiwan Connection in the Context of a Hong Kong-Singapore Cinematic Matrix
    • Concluding Remarks: The Korean Connection in an Inter-Asian Context
    • Part III. The Specter of the Past in Contemporary Popular Culture
    • Chapter 6. Dancing White Snake, Writing Green Snake: Reconfiguring the Legend in Mainland China and Hong Kong
    • Writing and Dancing, the Text and the Body
    • The Expressiveness of the Hybrid Body and the Iconoclasm of the Green Snake
    • Writing Women of China
    • A Dancing White Snake: Centered on the “Untold Stories”
    • Writing, Dancing, and the Cultural Revolution as Memory and Imagination
    • Concluding Remarks: Lingering Echoes
    • Chapter 7. The White Snake Legend in the United States in the Twenty-First Century:
    • Opera, Drama, and Digital Video
    • From Chinese Legend to Pulitzer-Prize Winning Western Opera: Madame White Snake
    • Green Snake the Storyteller
    • Righteousness against Love, Truth against Freedom
    • The Singaporean and Mainland Chinese Origins
    • The Powers and Possibilities of Mary Zimmerman’s The White Snake
    • The Wuzhen Experience
    • More Inspirations from Kentucky Students
    • A Female Writer of Socialist China: Zhao Qingge and Her 1956 Novel
    • The CTC Production in Washington D. C.
    • Poetry, Photography, and Fashion: Digital Challenges from Indrani
    • Chapter 8. Nothing Ever Dies: The Eternal Bodies of the White Snake
    • Korean Webtoon Lady White and Her Afterlife in Chinese
    • The Return of the Powerful Hybrid in the 2019 Internet Drama Legend of White Snake
    • Queering an Icon, Becoming a Demon in the 2019 Animation White Snake: The Legend Begins
    • Everlasting Bodily Memory: From the 1992 New Legend of Madame White Snake to the 2016 Star of Tomorrow
    • The Bodies of the Green Snake and the White Snake
    • Concluding Remarks: The Multiplicity and Openness of the Eternal Bodies of the Snake Women
    • Notes
    • Selected Chronological List of White Snake Texts
    • Selected Bibliography
    • Glossary
    • Index

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