East Asia by the Book! CEAS Author Talks: Tarryn Li-Min Chun - "Revolutionary Stagecraft" - Ariel Fox
Tarryn Li-Min Chun will discuss Revolutionary Stagecraft: Theater, Technology, and Politics in Modern China. She will be joined in discussion by Ariel Fox. A Q&A and signing will follow the discussion.
About the Book:
Revolutionary Stagecraft draws on a rich corpus of literary, historical, and technical materials to reveal a deep entanglement among technological modernization, political agendas, and the performing arts in modern China. This unique approach to Chinese theater history combines a close look at plays themselves, performance practices, technical theater details, and behind-the-scenes debates over “how to” make theater amid the political upheavals of China’s 20th century. The book begins at a pivotal moment in the 1920s—when Chinese theater artists began to import, use, and write about modern stage equipment—and ends in the 1980s when China's scientific and technological boom began. By examining iconic plays and performances from the perspective of the stage technologies involved, Tarryn Li-Min Chun provides a fresh perspective on their composition and staging. The chapters include stories on the challenges of creating imitation neon, rigging up a makeshift revolving stage, and representing a nuclear bomb detonating onstage.
In thinking about theater through technicity, the author mines well-studied materials such as dramatic texts and performance reviews for hidden technical details and brings to light a number of previously untapped sources such as technical journals and manuals; set design renderings, lighting plots, and prop schematics; and stage technology how-to guides for amateur thespians. This approach focuses on material stage technologies, situating these objects equally in relation to their technical potential, their human use, and the social, political, economic, and cultural forces that influence them. In each of its case studies, Revolutionary Stagecraft reveals the complex and at times surprising ways in which Chinese theater artists and technicians of the 20th century envisioned and enacted their own revolutions through the materiality of the theater apparatus.
About the Author:
Tarryn Li-Min Chun is Assistant Professor in the Department of Film, Television, and Theatre at the University of Notre Dame. She is author of Revolutionary Stagecraft: Theater, Technology, and Politics in Modern China (University of Michigan Press, 2024) and co-editor with Xiaomei Chen and Siyuan Liu of Rethinking Socialist Theaters of Reform: Performance Practice and Debate in the Mao Era (University of Michigan Press, 2022). Her work has appeared in Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, Prism: Theory and Modern Chinese Literature, Theatre Journal, Theatre Survey, TDR, and Asian Theatre Journal, and several edited volumes. She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship (USA) and other awards. Her research focuses on intersections of performance, technology, and media in modern and contemporary Sinophone theatre.
About the Interlocutor:
Ariel Fox is Associate Professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations and the Committee on Theater and Performance Studies at the University of Chicago. Her first book, The Cornucopian Stage: Performing Commerce in Early Modern China, was published by Harvard University Asia Center in 2023.
EAST ASIA BY THE BOOK! CEAS AUTHOR TALKS SERIES
The East Asia by the Book! CEAS Author Talks series showcases CEAS faculty, alumni, and special guests who provide author talks and book launches as a way to engage the broader community in conversations regarding key scholarship on East Asia. This series features a presentation by the author(s) that is often facilitated through conversation with a discussant, following by a question and answer session with the audience. For more information on the series, follow the link here: https://ceas.uchicago.edu/events/east-asia-the-book-ceas-author-talks
SPONSORSHIP
This event is presented in partnership with the Seminary Co-op Bookstores.
PHOTOGRAPHY/VIDEOGRAPHY
Please note that there may be photography taken during this educational event by the University of Chicago Center for East Asian Studies for archival and publicity purposes. By attending this event, participants are confirming their permission to be photographed and the University of Chicago’s right to use, distribute, copy, and edit the recordings in any form of media for non-commercial, educational purposes, and to grant rights to third parties to do any of the foregoing.
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