- Additional Authors
- Description
- 1 online resource (ix, 233 pages) : illustrations.
- Summary
- Happiness is on China's agenda. From Xi Jinping's "Chinese Dream" to online chat forums, the conspicuous references to happiness are hard to miss. This groundbreaking volume analyzes how different social groups make use of the concept and shows how closely official discourses on happiness are intertwined with popular sentiments. The Chinese Communist Party's attempts to define happiness and well-being around family-focused Han Chinese cultural traditions clearly strike a chord with the wider population. The collection highlights the links connecting the ideologies promoted by the government and the way they inform, and are in turn informed by, various deliberations and feelings circulating in the society. Contributors analyze the government's "happiness maximization strategies," including public service advertising campaigns, Confucian and Daoist-inflected discourses adapted for the self-help market, and the promotion of positive psychology as well as "happy housewives." They also discuss forces countering the hegemonic discourse: different forms of happiness in the LGBTQ community, teachings of Tibetan Buddhism that subvert the material culture propagated by the government, and the cynical messages in online novels that expose the fictitious nature of propaganda. Collectively, the authors bring out contemporary Chinese voices engaging with different philosophies, practices, and idealistic imaginings on what it means to be happy.
- Uniform Title
- Chinese Discourses on Happiness (Online)
- Book collections on Project MUSE.
- Subject
- Note
- Issued as part of book collections on Project MUSE.
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Access (note)
- Access restricted to authorized users.
- Source of Description (note)
- Description based on print version record.
- Contents
- Happiness in Chinese socialist discourse: Ah Q and the "visible hand" / Gerda Wielander -- Tibet and happiness in Chinese media discourses: issues and contestation / Jigme Yeshe Lama -- Happineses "with a Chinese taste": an interpretative analysis of CCTV's 2014 Spring Festival Gala's public service announcement (PSA) "chopsticks" (Kuaizi pian) / Giovanna Puppin -- "As long as my daughter is happy": "familial happiness" and parental support-narratives for LGBTQ children / Elisabeth Lund Engebresten -- Smile yourself happy: Zheng Nengliang and the discursive construction of happy subjects / Derek Hird -- "Happy housewives": gender, class, and psychological self-help in China / Jie Yang -- Cultivating capacity for happiness as a Confucian project in contemporary China: texts, embodiment, and moral affects / Yanhua Zhang -- Talking of happiness: how hope configures queer experience in China / William F. Schroeder -- Chinese happiness: a proverbial approach to popular philosophies of life / Mieke Matthyssen -- The happiness of unrealizable dreams: on the pursuit of pleasure in contemporary Chinese popular fiction / Heather Inwood.
- OCLC
- ssj0002276093
- Title
Chinese Discourses on Happiness [electronic resource] edited by Gerda Wielander and Derek Hird.
- Imprint
Baltimore, Maryland : Project Muse, 2019
- Series
Book collections on Project MUSE.
- Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Access
Access restricted to authorized users.
- Connect to:
- Added Author
Hird, Derek.
Wielander, Gerda.
Project Muse.
- Other Form:
Print version: 9789888455720