The transforming effect of the market economy and globalization on Chinese culture and society has raised many new topics and perspectives in Chinese studies. In literary and film studies, some have tried to describe the fundamental changes in cultural institution and production modes, while others have attempted to reassess the new relationship between writers and artists with the party/state and the market. Still others have used “global postmodernity” to explain the cultural and intellectual hybridity and contradictions. Jason McGrath conceives his new book as a dialogue with these approaches. He argues that, driven by the logic of capitalist marketization, the Chinese economy and culture are undergoing a transition from state heteronomy to relative autonomy (p. 9), which “is generated by, and ultimately must adjust itself to, various market conditions, from the demands of domestic consumers to those of a global cultural market” (p. 11). Thus, the fundamental condition and central...

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