Comments on: Lisa Rofel’s Other Modernities: Gendered Yearnings in China After Socialism

By: oneman

oneman — Wed, 27 Jul 2005 06:35:51 +0000

can you give me some page refs?

I’m afraid not — it’s been 5 years since I read the book! To be honest, some of the things I’d written back then kind of surprised me re-reading them today.

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By: Colin Danby

Colin Danby — Wed, 27 Jul 2005 03:45:54 +0000

Re: “Rofel pretty consistently uses a Foucauldian definition of modernity which has at its core the penetration of State power into the lives of its subjects” — can you give me some page refs? She definitely has the MF lit in mind (at least as a foil) in the initial section (pp 10-13) where the problematic is set up, but what emerged most strongly for me in the book is that modernity becomes a way of talking about desire, individual and social, and that it is often used in this context in opposition to the cultural revolution. There’s an interesting way that personal histories and personal might-have-beens figure here, in fact there are questions of time and thinking about time that emerge in this book that might merit a whole further discussion. But on the specific question what is going on in the conversation of the people she interviews is rather different from the Foucauldian process, I think. Maybe I should finish the book first, but it might be helpful to pick out one or two specific passages to examine. Thanks much for posting on this!

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By: Nomadic Thoughts

Nomadic Thoughts — Tue, 26 Jul 2005 22:26:40 +0000

Guns, Germs and Steel: Final Review and Analysis

I feel that Guns, Germs and Steel (the television version) does just that: it provides a succinct yet informative introduction to Jared Diamond’s theory. It doesn’t rob the viewer of the importance of the topics covered nor does it sell short the …

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