Reorienting Chinese Stars in Global Polyphonic Networks: Voice, Ethnicity, Power [Paperback]

This monograph offers a cutting edge perspective on the study of Chinese film stars by advancing a linguaphonic model, moving away from a conceptualization of transnational Chinese stardom reliant on the centrality of either action or body. It encompasses a selection of individual personalities from the most iconic Bruce Lee, Michelle Yeoh, and Maggie Cheung to the not-yet-full-fledged Takeshi Kaneshiro, Jay Chou, and Tang Wei to the newest Fan Binging, Liu Yifei, Wen Ming-Na, and Sammi Cheng who are exemplary to the star-making practices in the designated sites of articulations. This volume notably pivots on specific phonic modalities  spoken forms of tongues, manners of enunciation, styles of vocalization -- as means to mine ethnic and ideological underpinnings of Chinese stardom.  By indicating a methodological shift from the visual-based to aural-based vectors, it asserts the phonic as a legitimate bearing that can generate novel vigor in the reimagination of Chineseness. By exhausting the critical affordability of the phonic, this book unravels the polemics of visuality and aurality, body and voice, as well as onscreen personae and offscreen existence, remapping the contours of the ethnic fame-making in the global mediascape. 

Introduction: Laying out a Terrain of the Phone-based Star Discourse in Chinese Cinemas.- Part I: Anglophone Media Space.- Mediating Action and Speech: Michelle Yeohs Inter-phonic Star Appeal in Pan-Pacific Connections.- The Exotic Sound of New China: Fan Bingbing and Liu Yifei in Hollywood Star Vehicles.- From King of Mandopop to the New Kato: Vocal Eccentricities, Coolness, and the Crossover Image of Jay Chou.- Part II: Sinophone Cinematic Space.- Tang Wei: Lingual Versatility, On-/Off-screen Existence, and the Chinese-Korean Popular Imagination.- Modern Women, Old Shanghai: Maggie Cheung, Sammi Cheng, and FelC`