Information Fantasies: Precarious Mediation in Postsocialist China

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Information Fantasies offers a revisionist account of the emergence of the "information society," arguing that it was developed out of a set of techno-cultural imaginations and practices that arrived alongside postsocialism. Ranging over forgotten science fiction, unjustly neglected films, corporeal practices such as qigong, scientific journals, advertising, and cybernetic theories, it constructs an alternate genealogy of digital and information imaginaries.

Reviews

"Xiao Lius creative, erudite, and richly researched book entirely reconfigures our understanding of the media landscape in 1980s China. Her dense explorations of how new media emerged, coalesced, and interacted in this crucial period range over multiple formatsforgotten science fiction stories, neglected films, photographs, videotapes, computers, television and teletext, qigong, scientific journals, advertising, and cybernetic theoriesto draw science and aesthetics into a charged and illuminating encounter. The result is unquestionably one of the most original works to appear in Chinese cultural studies since the millennium."Margaret Hillenbrand, University of Oxford

"Liu solidly connects a very unique system with the IT perceptual revolution, essential for understanding the present futuristic scenario."Neural

"Information Fantasies strives to maintain a balance between the liberatory excitement around digital media and the constant crises of postsocialist precariousness (p. 10) and will surely prove a fundamental resource for an audience of readers as interdisciplinary as this volumes author."Asiascape

"Information Fantasies shows that the close reading of signs, symptoms and systems need not be at odds with descriptions of materiality and technicity."Critical Inquiry

"An ambitious academic dream turned into reality. The book shows the authors diligence in research and skills in organizing extensive and dispersive materials with a clear focus. . . . A valuable work in the study of communication and humanity."China Review International

"The site-specific and historically situated cases, along with brilliant interpretations, will interest researchers in media, literature, and modern China studies as well as historians of technology."Technology and Culture

Author Bio

Xiao Liu is assistant professor of East Asian studies at McGill University.