Accidental Conscript

New Chinese Cinema

New Chinese Cinema: Challenging Representations examines the ‘search for roots’ films that emerged from China in the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution. The authors contextualize the films of the so-called Fifth Generation directors who came to prominence in the 1980s and 1990s, such as Chen Kaige, Zhang Yimou, and Tian Zhuangzhuang. Including close analysis of such pivotal films as Farewell My Concubine, Raise the Red Lantern, and The Blue Kite, this book also examines the rise of contemporary Sixth Generation underground directors whose themes embrace the disaffection of urban youth.

Real Time

In Real Time David F. Bell explores the decisive impact the accelerated movement of people and information had on the fictions of four giants of French realism--Balzac, Stendhal, Dumas, and Zola. Nineteenth-century technological advances radically altered the infrastructure of France, changing the ways ordinary citizens–-and literary characters--viewed time, space, distance, and speed. The most influential of these advances included the improvement of the stagecoach, the growth of road and canal networks leading to the advent of the railway, and the increasing use of mail, and of the optical telegraph. Citing examples from a wide range of novels and stories, Bell demonstrates the numerous ways in which these trends of acceleration became not just literary devices and themes but also structuring principles of the novels themselves. Beginning with both the provincial and the Parisian communications networks of Balzac, Bell proceeds to discuss the roles of horses and optical telegraphs in Stendhal and the importance of domination of communication channels to the characters of Dumas, whose Count of Monte-Cristo might be seen as the ultimate fictional master of this accelerated culture. Finally, Bell analyzes the cinematic vision created by the arrival of the railroad, as depicted by Zola in La Bète Humaine.

The Journal of Agriculture