The Great Dragon Fantasy

China has undergone a unique path of development in the post-Maoist era. Especially, the last decade witnessed China's rapid rise to economic wealth and superpower status vis-à-vis the severe developmental predicaments of the West (financial crises, socio-political turbulences, etc.). This book analyzes how the leading Chinese thinkers understand China's prosperity and rapid development today, and whether there is any hidden mechanism that has been playing a crucial role of forming contemporary Chinese thinkers' shared passionate endeavor of resuscitating classical Chinese ideas, and thus shows how the fervor for discovering “essential characteristics” of Chinese thought reveals a hidden psychological mechanism.Contents:

The Fantasmatic Narrative of Contemporary Chinese Thought
Descendants of a Blurry-Eyed Dragon
New Enlightenment as Modernization
“Traumatic” Encounters with Postmodernism
Liberals and New Leftists as “Discursive Enemies”
China's New Nationalism and Its Obscene Core
Narrating the Fantasmatic Past: Ancient and Recent
Traversing the Fantasy




Readership: Academics, professionals, Sinologists, advanced undergraduate and graduate students interested in China studies.