Notes

The King of Masks

Summary from IMDB:

Wang Bianlian is an aging street performer known as the King of Mask for his mastery of Sichuan Change Art in a true story. His wife left him with and infant son over 30 years ago. The son died from illness at age 10. This left Wang a melancholy loner aching for a male descendent to learn his rare and dying art. A famous master performer of the Sichuan Opera offers to bring him into his act, thus giving Wang fame and possible fortune, but Wang opts for staying the simple street performer. Then, one night after a performance he is sold a young boy by a slave trader posing as the boy's parent. "Grandpa" finds new joy in life as he plans to teach "Doggie" (an affectionate term often used for young children in China) his art. All is well until Doggie is found out to really be a girl.

Master Liang, a famous impersonator of female parts at the Sichuan Opera, is enchanted by the art of the street performer Wang, known as the King of Masks. He offers him an engagement at the opera, but Wang says he is a solitary by nature. His only sorrow is that he has no male descendant who can carry on the art of the changing masks after his death. To solve the problem Wang buys an 8 year old orphan. His happiness turns into dejection, when he finds out that "the boy" actually is a girl. Despite his displeasure he keeps the girl and trains her as an acrobat. One evening he takes her to a performance of the opera "Attaining Nirvana". There Master Liang plays a princess, who hangs from the ceiling by a rope, which she threatens to cut if the officers don't stop the execution of her father, the emperor. Some days later the girl rescues a 4 year old boy from his confinement by some child-traders. Believing he is an orphan, she brings him to Wang, who she knows is longing for a male inheritor. But the boy is actually kidnapped from a wealthy family, and soon Wang is accused of the robbery and sentenced to death. To persuade Master Liang to help her rescue Wang, the girl climbs the roof of the opera house, ties a rope around her leg and hangs to it from the ceiling. She threatens to cut the rope, and when she actually does this, Master Liang throws himself forward and catches her. He is moved by her action and decides to do whatever he can to help the girl rescue Wang.

Ideas:
They're in the 1930s, still in feudalism.
Masks as folk tradition-tie to own culture/family
Masks as skill/job-he relies on it for survival, bread and butter.
Masks as performance-entertains townspeople; intersection of art/body
Masks as tools to hide emotions-escape from past/tragedy (escapism)
Her crossdressing is a mask (passing): equalization of sexes modernizes the old practice; the girl's cunning saves their lives; trickery/trickster/disguise/hide the truth-pretend to be something you're not
Masks as personal space-place to build relationship; student/teacher dichotomy-rapport becomes stronger
Masks as deceit: scammers, child traffickers, slave drivers, thieves, liars, cheaters

Masks of Modernity

The Masks of Modernity: Un/covering Global Modernisms (Proposals due May 15 )

full name / name of organization: Andrew Reynolds & Bonnie Roos

contact email: areynolds@wtamu.edu, broos@wtamu.edu

The Masks of Modernity: Un/covering Global Modernisms

The success of Modernist studies is attributable in part to its early recognition of its global scope and ambitions. However, despite laudable attempts to engage cultural difference and cultural studies texts within the discipline, a disconnect remains between transatlantic Modernist studies and global modernisms proper—from Hispanic and Brazilian “Modernismos” to Asian Modernisms to African Modernist works. In the history of Modernism/Modernity, for example, only one article has ever addressed the Spanish American modernist tradition. Very few have included examples of Asian or African modernisms. Our proposed collection seeks to begin a conversation about global modernisms in the broadest and most comparative sense.

The theme of masks serves as a common ground for various global modernisms. From Japanese Kabuki masks, African spiritual masks, Mexican pre-Columbian masks, to the masks of Greek Theater, masks have played a prominent role in Modernist literary, cultural, and artistic discourses. We think of masks not only as a search for identity through connection with the past and incorporated into various works of the Modernist period, but also as a universal construct of modern existence, a simulacrum, representing that which we must be to survive, that which we aspire to be in our dreams, or that which we fear we truly are. In this sense, we might understand masks as a metaphor, a façade that serves to reveal, veil, or underscore the “truth,” to describe the tensions and contradictions of Modernism in a given cultural context.
The proposed anthology will be produced in English, and seeks to explore representations of masks in Modernist texts in all of their varieties. Imaginative, interdisciplinary and cultural studies approaches are encouraged.

Please email 300-500-word proposals and a brief biography by May 15 to Andrew Reynolds, areynolds@wtamu.edu or Bonnie Roos, broos@wtamu.edu. Please forward as appropriate.

Possible topics might include (but are in no way limited to) the following:
• Masks in art, literature, cinema, dance, architecture, cultural studies, etc.
• The “Masking” of Eurocentrism through foreign experience and exoticized representations
• The use of fashion, kitsch and the everyday to “mask” artistic and literary intentionality
• The theme of masks and play as a Modernist trope
• Western vs. Non-Western masks during Modernism
• Modernism “masking” colonialist and imperialist regimes
• Masks as a part of ritual and performance in Modernist art and literature
• Masks and the intersection of art and the body during Modernism
• Visual and literary abstraction vs. realism through the use of masks
• “Masking” gender roles during Modernism
• The use of masks in folk traditions as represented in Modernism
• Psychoanalysis as a method of seeing behind the mask
• Robotics, Prosthesis or Cybernetics as masks of self
• “Passing” as a form of Modernist mask
• The mask as an iteration of the posthuman, decentered subject
• Masking as a representation/precursor of the collective mind
• Using masks to produce virtual and artificial spaces
• Costuming, cosmetics and design