Naked Punch 07
 Naked
Punch 07 features an extensive multi-authored special section
on Contemporary Chinese Culture, composed of
two essays on current Chinese philosophical developments, two
articles on contemporary Chinese visual arts, and two more essays
on Chinese literature in comparison to two Western writers, Kafka
and Benjamin. The special is complemented by a 16 pages colour
section devoted to contemporary chinese works of art. Also in
the issue: an exclusive dialogue with prominent intellectual Noam
Chomsky on the pecularities of the American political
system; Laura Carlsen's essay on the indigenous
movement of the Zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico; Amelie
Barras' essay dealing with causes and effects of numberical
gender imbalance in Asia; poetry by Qalandar Memon and
Frederick Pollack; an exclusive photoreportage
on the recent CPE events in France by Charlotte Gonzalez.
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Issue 07 from our Website
Contents -
Fragments of a Prologue
Articles by Lorenzo Marsili, Qalandar Bux Memon, and Jacopo Moroni
Images
of China - Lorenzo Marsili
In Conversation with Noam Chomsky
In this dialogue, Noam Chomsky explores the
nuances of American politics discussing, with the usual clarity, the patrician and public relation elements of the two-party system. In a society where parties are candidates-producing machines as opposed to popular-based organizations, Chomsky places into context the dismantlement of the welfare state and the reformulation of foreign policy in terms of war. How, then, to create again after the experiment of the 1960s a common language of renewed mobilization?
Special Section on Contemporary Chinese
Culture:
Philosophy
Shaobo Xie and Fenghzhen Wang offer a critical
perspective on Chinese modernity in their joint essay “From
Utopian Negation to Negated Utopia”. The two Chinese intellectuals
draw the lines of the evolution of Chinese consciousness from
Maoist Utopianism and the eschatological belief in a paradise
to come, to the hedonism and nihilism of post-Tiananmen China,
where economic liberalism and a get-wealthy mentality pervade.
Jiwei Ci, in his essay “Desublimation and Re-sublimation
in Post-Mao China”, picks up where Shaobo Xie and Fengzhen Wang
left off; he attempts, in this article, to start a discussion
on possible alternatives to free-for-all material accumulation
and wild consumerism, as a replacement for the lost Maoist utopia.
Art
For the Art Section, Lorenzo Marsili interviews
Beijing-based art critic Karen Smith, for an interesting conversation
on the nature of the Chinese avant-garde, its critical and social
significance, the risk of Orientalist or neo-colonialist approaches,
and its connection to the movement of consciousness outlined in
the two philosophical essays that compose this special.
Wang Wei Wei discussed the work of Han Lei, our
cover artist in this issue, with an essay that inter-mingles
a well-balanced artistic assessment to social and historical considerations.
The 16-pages colour spread presents a number of
contemporary works of art from China; the selection has been chosen
to offer the reader an immediate example of the works being discussed
in the two articles.
Literature and Criticism
In the literary section, Hui Jiang discusses,
in her intriguing essay “Insight and Blindspot”, Walter Benjamin’s
theory of the “storyteller” and its connection to the Chinese
experience and leftist literary thought.
Lastly, Tully Rector analyses the relevance of
Kafka’s work to understand the Chinese literary experience.
An Uprising Against the Inevitable - Laura Carlsen
Can a grassroot indigenous movement provide a number of clues for a new mode of transnational governance as many critics and supporters of the globalization from below movement seem to argue? In this essay, Laura Carlsen looks at the origins, present and future prospects of the 1994 Zapatista uprising in Chiapas, Mexico, a mobilization that truly altered the dynamics of the Mexican political process.
Absenty Baby Girls: China's Achilles' Tendon? - Amelie Barras
In this essay Amelie Barras looks at the possible consequences of the gender imbalance in China produced by decades of paternal preference for male children. If not dealt with soon, this trend could be the origin of great social unrest and uprising in the next decades – a direct consequence of the hopelessness of a generation of men without spouses and of the government failure to upkeep the social safety-nets of the past.
Selected Poetry
Qalandar Bux Memon and Frederick Pollack
CPE French Protests Photoreportage
- Charlotte Gonzalez
There has been relatively little exposure in England to the recent
protests against the implementation of a new employment law, the
CPE (First Employment Contract), which extends the season of social
unrest in France inaugurated by the banlieues riots of
November 2005. This photo-reportage by Charlotte Gonzalez attempts
to understand from the ground-up the extent of the confrontation
between the protesters and the government, framing a struggle
that went beyond the level of mere political dialectic.
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Issue 07 from our Website
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