The Great Wall of Confinement

The Great Wall of Confinement

Author: Philip F. Williams

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2004-08-17

Total Pages: 262

ISBN-13: 0520938550

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China is the only major world power to have entered the twenty-first century with a thriving prison camp network—a frightening, mostly hidden realm known since 1951 as the laogai system. This book, the most comprehensive study of China's prison camps to date, draws from a wide range of primary sources, including many compelling literary documents, to illuminate life inside China's prison camps. Focusing mainly on the second half of the twentieth century, Philip F. Williams and Yenna Wu outline the evolution of the laogai system, construct a vivid picture of prisoners' lives from arrest and interrogation to release, and provide a troubling new perspective on the human rights issues plaguing China.


Book Synopsis The Great Wall of Confinement by : Philip F. Williams

Download or read book The Great Wall of Confinement written by Philip F. Williams and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2004-08-17 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: China is the only major world power to have entered the twenty-first century with a thriving prison camp network—a frightening, mostly hidden realm known since 1951 as the laogai system. This book, the most comprehensive study of China's prison camps to date, draws from a wide range of primary sources, including many compelling literary documents, to illuminate life inside China's prison camps. Focusing mainly on the second half of the twentieth century, Philip F. Williams and Yenna Wu outline the evolution of the laogai system, construct a vivid picture of prisoners' lives from arrest and interrogation to release, and provide a troubling new perspective on the human rights issues plaguing China.


The Great Wall of Confinement

The Great Wall of Confinement

Author: Philip F. Williams

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2004-08-17

Total Pages: 270

ISBN-13: 9780520938557

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China is the only major world power to have entered the twenty-first century with a thriving prison camp network—a frightening, mostly hidden realm known since 1951 as the laogai system. This book, the most comprehensive study of China's prison camps to date, draws from a wide range of primary sources, including many compelling literary documents, to illuminate life inside China's prison camps. Focusing mainly on the second half of the twentieth century, Philip F. Williams and Yenna Wu outline the evolution of the laogai system, construct a vivid picture of prisoners' lives from arrest and interrogation to release, and provide a troubling new perspective on the human rights issues plaguing China.


Book Synopsis The Great Wall of Confinement by : Philip F. Williams

Download or read book The Great Wall of Confinement written by Philip F. Williams and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2004-08-17 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: China is the only major world power to have entered the twenty-first century with a thriving prison camp network—a frightening, mostly hidden realm known since 1951 as the laogai system. This book, the most comprehensive study of China's prison camps to date, draws from a wide range of primary sources, including many compelling literary documents, to illuminate life inside China's prison camps. Focusing mainly on the second half of the twentieth century, Philip F. Williams and Yenna Wu outline the evolution of the laogai system, construct a vivid picture of prisoners' lives from arrest and interrogation to release, and provide a troubling new perspective on the human rights issues plaguing China.


The Great Wall of Confinement

The Great Wall of Confinement

Author: Philip F. Williams

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2004-08-17

Total Pages: 261

ISBN-13: 0520227794

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"China is so big and so diverse that, as in the proverbial blind man touching an elephant, contemporary descriptions that vary dramatically can all be true. Few visitors to glittering Shanghai of Shenzhen, for example, will get any impression of the gaping gray maw of the government's prison camp system that Philip Williams and Yenna Wu, basing themselves on a vast range of Chinese sources, illuminate in erudite detail. The authors look at every facet of the camps, place them within China's historical tradition, and compare them with modern analogues. Throughout, literary and autobiographical sources give the 'feel' for the deadening world of the camps."—Perry Link, author of The Uses of Literature: Life in the Socialist Chinese Literary System "The Great Wall of Confinement deals with issues ranging from the legal grounding—or the lack of any—of the Chinese concentration camp system, to its technical implementation, its discursive manifestation, and its physical as well as psychological impact. A book like this is long overdue. With this work, Williams and Wu have made an important contribution to the fields of Chinese legal and literary studies."—David Der-wei Wang, author of The Monster That Is History "The Great Wall of Confinement is an excellent book. It synthesizes an already significant corpus of writings on Chinese prisons and labor camps, marshals an array of literary sources as essential historical source materials, and compares the literature of Chinese incarceration with its Soviet and European counterparts. The value of this important study stems equally from its tone—a rare combination of a level-headed quality with a very fine sensitivity to the human tragedy recounted in this literature."—Jean-Luc Domenach, author of Où va la Chine? (Where does China Go?) "The Great Wall of Confinement has attempted to lift part of the veil on China's long lasting tragedy: the use of imprisonment, torture, forced labor against its citizens, whether criminals, feeble minded or simply political opponents. The angle is new; the question is to find out how Chinese have written on this subject, whether in fiction or reportage, the way they went about telling their stories, how much they said, or withheld. Through Philip Willams and Yenna Wu's thought-provoking analysis of such writings, of the cultural origins of forced labor and imprisonment in imperial and Communist China, one comes closer to this sinister reality, which remains to this day one of the best kept secrets of our planet."—Marie Holzman, President of the Association Solidarité Chine


Book Synopsis The Great Wall of Confinement by : Philip F. Williams

Download or read book The Great Wall of Confinement written by Philip F. Williams and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2004-08-17 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "China is so big and so diverse that, as in the proverbial blind man touching an elephant, contemporary descriptions that vary dramatically can all be true. Few visitors to glittering Shanghai of Shenzhen, for example, will get any impression of the gaping gray maw of the government's prison camp system that Philip Williams and Yenna Wu, basing themselves on a vast range of Chinese sources, illuminate in erudite detail. The authors look at every facet of the camps, place them within China's historical tradition, and compare them with modern analogues. Throughout, literary and autobiographical sources give the 'feel' for the deadening world of the camps."—Perry Link, author of The Uses of Literature: Life in the Socialist Chinese Literary System "The Great Wall of Confinement deals with issues ranging from the legal grounding—or the lack of any—of the Chinese concentration camp system, to its technical implementation, its discursive manifestation, and its physical as well as psychological impact. A book like this is long overdue. With this work, Williams and Wu have made an important contribution to the fields of Chinese legal and literary studies."—David Der-wei Wang, author of The Monster That Is History "The Great Wall of Confinement is an excellent book. It synthesizes an already significant corpus of writings on Chinese prisons and labor camps, marshals an array of literary sources as essential historical source materials, and compares the literature of Chinese incarceration with its Soviet and European counterparts. The value of this important study stems equally from its tone—a rare combination of a level-headed quality with a very fine sensitivity to the human tragedy recounted in this literature."—Jean-Luc Domenach, author of Où va la Chine? (Where does China Go?) "The Great Wall of Confinement has attempted to lift part of the veil on China's long lasting tragedy: the use of imprisonment, torture, forced labor against its citizens, whether criminals, feeble minded or simply political opponents. The angle is new; the question is to find out how Chinese have written on this subject, whether in fiction or reportage, the way they went about telling their stories, how much they said, or withheld. Through Philip Willams and Yenna Wu's thought-provoking analysis of such writings, of the cultural origins of forced labor and imprisonment in imperial and Communist China, one comes closer to this sinister reality, which remains to this day one of the best kept secrets of our planet."—Marie Holzman, President of the Association Solidarité Chine


Cultures of Confinement

Cultures of Confinement

Author: Frank Dikötter

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2018-07-05

Total Pages: 348

ISBN-13: 1501721267

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Prisons are on the increase from the United States to China, as ever-larger proportions of humanity find themselves behind bars. While prisons now span the world, we know little about their history in global perspective. Rather than interpreting the prison's proliferation as the predictable result of globalization, Cultures of Confinement underlines the fact that the prison was never simply imposed by colonial powers or copied by elites eager to emulate the West, but was reinvented and transformed by a host of local factors, its success being dependent on its very flexibility. Complex cultural negotiations took place in encounters between different parts of the world, and rather than assigning a passive role to Latin America, Asia, and Africa, the authors of this book point out the acts of resistance or appropriation that altered the social practices associated with confinement. The prison, in short, was understood in culturally specific ways and reinvented in a variety of local contexts examined here for the first time in global perspective.


Book Synopsis Cultures of Confinement by : Frank Dikötter

Download or read book Cultures of Confinement written by Frank Dikötter and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-07-05 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prisons are on the increase from the United States to China, as ever-larger proportions of humanity find themselves behind bars. While prisons now span the world, we know little about their history in global perspective. Rather than interpreting the prison's proliferation as the predictable result of globalization, Cultures of Confinement underlines the fact that the prison was never simply imposed by colonial powers or copied by elites eager to emulate the West, but was reinvented and transformed by a host of local factors, its success being dependent on its very flexibility. Complex cultural negotiations took place in encounters between different parts of the world, and rather than assigning a passive role to Latin America, Asia, and Africa, the authors of this book point out the acts of resistance or appropriation that altered the social practices associated with confinement. The prison, in short, was understood in culturally specific ways and reinvented in a variety of local contexts examined here for the first time in global perspective.


Narratives of Annihilation, Confinement, and Survival

Narratives of Annihilation, Confinement, and Survival

Author: Anja Tippner

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2019-05-20

Total Pages: 286

ISBN-13: 311063113X

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The concept of “camp narratives” rather than “Holocaust narratives” or “Gulag narratives” is based on the assumption that literary accounts of camp experiences share common traits, aesthetically as well as thematically. The book presents readings of camp literature that underscore the similarities between texts about Soviet gulag camps, Nazi camps and about other camp experiences. While literature about Nazi concentration camps still serves as a point of reference for camp narratives in the same way that the Holocaust serves as a point of reference for other genocidal operations, socialist labor and penal camps have become transnational lieux de mémoire in their own right since 1989. This volume intends to provide a theoretical frame as well as an overview of several important European camp literatures and case studies of iconic camp narratives and to take a comparative and transnational perspective on the genre of the camp narrative.


Book Synopsis Narratives of Annihilation, Confinement, and Survival by : Anja Tippner

Download or read book Narratives of Annihilation, Confinement, and Survival written by Anja Tippner and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2019-05-20 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The concept of “camp narratives” rather than “Holocaust narratives” or “Gulag narratives” is based on the assumption that literary accounts of camp experiences share common traits, aesthetically as well as thematically. The book presents readings of camp literature that underscore the similarities between texts about Soviet gulag camps, Nazi camps and about other camp experiences. While literature about Nazi concentration camps still serves as a point of reference for camp narratives in the same way that the Holocaust serves as a point of reference for other genocidal operations, socialist labor and penal camps have become transnational lieux de mémoire in their own right since 1989. This volume intends to provide a theoretical frame as well as an overview of several important European camp literatures and case studies of iconic camp narratives and to take a comparative and transnational perspective on the genre of the camp narrative.


Remolding and Resistance Among Writers of the Chinese Prison Camp

Remolding and Resistance Among Writers of the Chinese Prison Camp

Author: Philip Williams

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2006-10-03

Total Pages: 286

ISBN-13: 1135987858

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Even in the twenty-first century, the contemporary Chinese prison camp remains a more obscure and poorly understood realm than the Forbidden City of old. Apolitical service organizations such as the International Red Cross have routinely been denied access to PRC prison camps and prison camp inmates who have smuggled out frank, unofficial accounts of their incarceration have only been published overseas, and often had their sentences extended as a result. Presenting extensive analysis of literary and biographical accounts, this illuminating book provides a window to the affective side and emotional tenor of day-to-day life in modern day labour camps. With contributions from well-known and respected scholars, the book covers the contentious issues of prison economics, prisoner 'remolding' and post-traumatic stress disorder. Drawing parallels with Soviet, Nazi and Japanese prison camp practice, this outstanding new book will be invaluable to those interested in how the human mind responds to extremity, as well as to scholars of Chinese history, politics, literature and sociology.


Book Synopsis Remolding and Resistance Among Writers of the Chinese Prison Camp by : Philip Williams

Download or read book Remolding and Resistance Among Writers of the Chinese Prison Camp written by Philip Williams and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2006-10-03 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Even in the twenty-first century, the contemporary Chinese prison camp remains a more obscure and poorly understood realm than the Forbidden City of old. Apolitical service organizations such as the International Red Cross have routinely been denied access to PRC prison camps and prison camp inmates who have smuggled out frank, unofficial accounts of their incarceration have only been published overseas, and often had their sentences extended as a result. Presenting extensive analysis of literary and biographical accounts, this illuminating book provides a window to the affective side and emotional tenor of day-to-day life in modern day labour camps. With contributions from well-known and respected scholars, the book covers the contentious issues of prison economics, prisoner 'remolding' and post-traumatic stress disorder. Drawing parallels with Soviet, Nazi and Japanese prison camp practice, this outstanding new book will be invaluable to those interested in how the human mind responds to extremity, as well as to scholars of Chinese history, politics, literature and sociology.


Metaphors of Confinement

Metaphors of Confinement

Author: Monika Fludernik

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2019-08-13

Total Pages: 841

ISBN-13: 019884090X

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Metaphors of Confinement: The Prison in Fact, Fiction, and Fantasy offers a historical survey of imaginings of the prison as expressed in carceral metaphors in a range of texts about imprisonment from Antiquity to the present as well as non-penal situations described as confining or restrictive. These imaginings coalesce into a 'carceral imaginary' that determines the way we think about prisons, just as social debates about punishment and criminals feed into the way carceral imaginary develops over time. Examining not only English-language prose fiction but also poetry and drama from the Middle Ages to postcolonial, particularly African, literature, the book juxtaposes literary and non-literary contexts and contrasts fictional and nonfictional representations of (im)prison(ment) and discussions about the prison as institution and experiential reality. It comments on present-day trends of punitivity and foregrounds the ethical dimensions of penal punishment. The main argument concerns the continuity of carceral metaphors through the centuries despite historical developments that included major shifts in policy (such as the invention of the penitentiary). The study looks at selected carceral metaphors, often from two complementary perspectives, such as the home as prison or the prison as home, or the factory as prison and the prison as factory. The case studies present particularly relevant genres and texts that employ these metaphors, often from a historical perspective that analyses development through different periods.


Book Synopsis Metaphors of Confinement by : Monika Fludernik

Download or read book Metaphors of Confinement written by Monika Fludernik and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2019-08-13 with total page 841 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Metaphors of Confinement: The Prison in Fact, Fiction, and Fantasy offers a historical survey of imaginings of the prison as expressed in carceral metaphors in a range of texts about imprisonment from Antiquity to the present as well as non-penal situations described as confining or restrictive. These imaginings coalesce into a 'carceral imaginary' that determines the way we think about prisons, just as social debates about punishment and criminals feed into the way carceral imaginary develops over time. Examining not only English-language prose fiction but also poetry and drama from the Middle Ages to postcolonial, particularly African, literature, the book juxtaposes literary and non-literary contexts and contrasts fictional and nonfictional representations of (im)prison(ment) and discussions about the prison as institution and experiential reality. It comments on present-day trends of punitivity and foregrounds the ethical dimensions of penal punishment. The main argument concerns the continuity of carceral metaphors through the centuries despite historical developments that included major shifts in policy (such as the invention of the penitentiary). The study looks at selected carceral metaphors, often from two complementary perspectives, such as the home as prison or the prison as home, or the factory as prison and the prison as factory. The case studies present particularly relevant genres and texts that employ these metaphors, often from a historical perspective that analyses development through different periods.


Freedom and Confinement in Modernity

Freedom and Confinement in Modernity

Author: A. Kordela

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2011-05-09

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 023011895X

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Kafka's literary universe is organized around constellations of imprisonment. Freedom and Confinement in Modernity proposes that imprisonment does not signify a tortured state of the individual in modernity. Rather, it provides a new reading of imprisonment suggesting it allows Kafka to perform a critique of a modernity instead.


Book Synopsis Freedom and Confinement in Modernity by : A. Kordela

Download or read book Freedom and Confinement in Modernity written by A. Kordela and published by Springer. This book was released on 2011-05-09 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kafka's literary universe is organized around constellations of imprisonment. Freedom and Confinement in Modernity proposes that imprisonment does not signify a tortured state of the individual in modernity. Rather, it provides a new reading of imprisonment suggesting it allows Kafka to perform a critique of a modernity instead.


Confinement

Confinement

Author: Carrie Brown

Publisher: Berkley Publishing Group

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 372

ISBN-13: 9780425200278

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A refugee from Vienna and World War II, Arthur Henning now has a comfortable new life as a chauffeur for a banker and his family in the suburbs of New York. When he is ordered to drive the banker's daughter to a home for unwed mothers, Arthur awakes from his own emotional slumber and discovers--within his own confinement--freedom.


Book Synopsis Confinement by : Carrie Brown

Download or read book Confinement written by Carrie Brown and published by Berkley Publishing Group. This book was released on 2005 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A refugee from Vienna and World War II, Arthur Henning now has a comfortable new life as a chauffeur for a banker and his family in the suburbs of New York. When he is ordered to drive the banker's daughter to a home for unwed mothers, Arthur awakes from his own emotional slumber and discovers--within his own confinement--freedom.


Afterlives of Confinement

Afterlives of Confinement

Author: Susana Draper

Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Pre

Published: 2015-08-15

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 0822978067

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During the age of dictatorships, Latin American prisons became a symbol for the vanquishing of political opponents, many of whom were never seen again. In the postdictatorship era of the 1990s, a number of these prisons were repurposed into shopping malls, museums, and memorials. Susana Draper uses the phenomenon of the "opening" of prisons and detention centers to begin a dialog on conceptualizations of democracy and freedom in post-dictatorship Latin America. Focusing on the Southern Cone nations of Uruguay, Chile, and Argentina, Draper examines key works in architecture, film, and literature to peel away the veiled continuity of dictatorial power structures in ensuing consumer cultures. The afterlife of prisons became an important tool in the "forgetting" of past politics, while also serving as a reminder to citizens of the liberties they now enjoyed. In Draper's analysis, these symbols led the populace to believe they had attained freedom, although they had only witnessed the veneer of democracy—in the ability to vote and consume. In selected literary works by Roberto Bola–o, Eleuterio Fernandez Huidoboro, and Diamela Eltit and films by Alejandro Agresti and Marco Bechis, Draper finds further evidence of the emptiness and melancholy of underachieved goals in the afterlife of dictatorships. The social changes that did not occur, the inability to effectively mourn the losses of a now-hidden past, the homogenizing effects of market economies, and a yearning for the promises of true freedom are thematic currents underlying much of these texts. Draper's study of the manipulation of culture and consumerism under the guise of democracy will have powerful implications not only for Latin Americanists but also for those studying neoliberal transformations globally.


Book Synopsis Afterlives of Confinement by : Susana Draper

Download or read book Afterlives of Confinement written by Susana Draper and published by University of Pittsburgh Pre. This book was released on 2015-08-15 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the age of dictatorships, Latin American prisons became a symbol for the vanquishing of political opponents, many of whom were never seen again. In the postdictatorship era of the 1990s, a number of these prisons were repurposed into shopping malls, museums, and memorials. Susana Draper uses the phenomenon of the "opening" of prisons and detention centers to begin a dialog on conceptualizations of democracy and freedom in post-dictatorship Latin America. Focusing on the Southern Cone nations of Uruguay, Chile, and Argentina, Draper examines key works in architecture, film, and literature to peel away the veiled continuity of dictatorial power structures in ensuing consumer cultures. The afterlife of prisons became an important tool in the "forgetting" of past politics, while also serving as a reminder to citizens of the liberties they now enjoyed. In Draper's analysis, these symbols led the populace to believe they had attained freedom, although they had only witnessed the veneer of democracy—in the ability to vote and consume. In selected literary works by Roberto Bola–o, Eleuterio Fernandez Huidoboro, and Diamela Eltit and films by Alejandro Agresti and Marco Bechis, Draper finds further evidence of the emptiness and melancholy of underachieved goals in the afterlife of dictatorships. The social changes that did not occur, the inability to effectively mourn the losses of a now-hidden past, the homogenizing effects of market economies, and a yearning for the promises of true freedom are thematic currents underlying much of these texts. Draper's study of the manipulation of culture and consumerism under the guise of democracy will have powerful implications not only for Latin Americanists but also for those studying neoliberal transformations globally.