Identity, Space and History: Entrepreneur Narratives and Spatial-Temporal Metaphors in the Reform and Opening-up TV Dramas

Journal: Arts Studies and Criticism DOI: 10.32629/asc.v7i3.5348

Bo Wang1, Haoran Gao2

1. Chongqing University of Technology, Hongguang Avenue,Chongqing, China
2. Department of Marxism, Tongji University, Shanghai, China

Abstract

In recent years, a number of Reform and opening-up TV dramas set against the backdrop of China’s reform and opening up have emerged on television screens. Featuring entrepreneurs as their primary narrative subjects, these dramas depict the historical chapter of reform and opening up by reconstructing the people’s innovative and entrepreneurial practices in the economic sphere. This trend not only responds to the new era literary and artistic requirement to “Tell China’s stories well,” but also provides the audience with an immersive thematic education. Taking this type of work as its research object, this paper analyzes its narrative strategies along three dimensions: the construction and identification of entrepreneurial identity, the construction of real and symbolic spaces, and the historiography of reform and opening up.

Keywords

reform and opening-up TV dramas, entrepreneurial identity construction, spatial narrative, historical writing

References

[1]Peng Wenxiang. The Image Writing of Modernity in China: Research on Reform-Themed TV Series in the New Era. Beijing: China Media University Press, 2009: 1.
[2][French] Paul Ricœur. The Self as an Other. Translated by Yu Biping. Beijing: The Commercial Press, 2013: 211.
[3]Qian Maowei. “Personal History Writing from the Perspective of Public History.” Journal of Nankai University (Philosophy and Social Sciences Edition), 2014(04): 62-70.
[4]Wan Zizi. Symbols and Cultural Creation. Beijing: China Social Sciences Press, 2011: 226.
[5]Long Diyong. Spatial Narratology. Beijing: Life, Reading, and New Knowledge, 2015: 43.

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