This course provides an overview of Chinese martial arts fiction and film from earliest times to the present day. The focus will be on the close-reading of literary, art-historical, and cinematic texts, but will also include discussion of the significance of these works against their broader historical and social background. Topics to be discussed: the literary/cinematic pleasure of watching violence, the relationship between violence and the law, gender ambiguity and the woman warrior, the imperial and (trans)national order of martial arts cinema, and the moral and physical economy of vengeance.
