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The Ethics of Witness

Dailiness and History in Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Films

  • Book
  • © 2019

Overview

Authors:
  1. Xiao Cai

    1. Shanghai University of Engineer Science, Shanghai, China

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  • Covers all Hou Hsiao-hsien’s films from the perspective of cultural studies

  • Addresses the presentation of history in Hou Hsiao-hsien’s films in Deleuze’s time-image

  • Brings together a group of top scholars to discsuss the much-debated issues of representation of historical trauma, memory and evocation, and the un/representable

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Table of contents (5 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xv
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  2. Hou Hsiao-Hsien: Films and Readings

    • Xiao Cai
    Pages 1-10

  3. A Poetics of Time: The Representation of Daily Life

    • Xiao Cai
    Pages 11-63

  4. Remapping Taiwan: Space as a Time Monument

    • Xiao Cai
    Pages 65-157

  5. Memory and Time: a Possibility of History in the Taiwan Trilogy

    • Xiao Cai
    Pages 159-219

  6. The Ordinary in the Representation of History

    • Xiao Cai
    Pages 221-242

  7. Back Matter

    Pages 243-262
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Keywords

About this book

This book explores the aesthetic and ethical ways in which history and daily life are filmically represented and witnessed in Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien’s movies. From the era of the Japanese Occupation to the White Horror and then to the lifting of martial law, the author shows how Hou Hsiao-hsien uses visual media to evoke the rhythms of daily life through the emotional memory of the characters and communities he explores. In particular, the book focuses on the ways in which Hou Hsiao-hsien seeks to reflect the strong dilemmas of identity and the traumatic emotions associated with witnessing history. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, it investigates the concepts of daily life, representation and historical trauma in order to focus on how these films represent history and political trauma through the nature of daily life and personal memories, and the resulting historical responsibility and ethics. This is the first academic monography about Hou Hsiao-hsien’s films.

Authors and Affiliations

  • Shanghai University of Engineer Science, Shanghai, China

    Xiao Cai

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: The Ethics of Witness

  • Book Subtitle: Dailiness and History in Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Films

  • Authors: Xiao Cai

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-2170-2

  • Publisher: Springer Singapore

  • eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)

  • Copyright Information: Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-981-13-2169-6Published: 20 October 2018

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-981-13-4742-9Published: 29 December 2018

  • eBook ISBN: 978-981-13-2170-2Published: 10 October 2018

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XV, 262

  • Number of Illustrations: 72 b/w illustrations, 102 illustrations in colour

  • Topics: Cultural Studies, Media Research

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