{"product_id":"seeing-through-abstraction-literary-encounters-with-information-in-modern-china-paperback","title":"Seeing Through Abstraction: Literary Encounters with Information in Modern China - Paperback","description":"\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align: right;\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/reportcopyrightinfringement.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eReport copyright infringement\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eAnatoly Detwyler\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDuring the first half of the twentieth century, China saw sweeping changes in the material conditions and practices of communication, transforming the volume, velocity, variety, veracity, and value of information. Encountering the new abstract matter of information, a generation of Chinese writers faced a crisis of literary identity: What made literature distinct from other informational genres, such as newspaper columns, financial figures, and telegrams? How was the emergent information order reshaping individual and social knowledge? And where would literature stand within this new order? \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThis book examines how writers of the Republican era (1912-1949) came to recognize and respond to \"information.\" Anatoly Detwyler investigates a wide range of literary and graphic experiments that engaged with different forms of information management, including data visualization, financial statistics, and propaganda science. These works, he argues, collectively attest to a new perceptibility of abstraction and its epistemological implications for apprehending reality. Tracing this mode of perception across fiction, poetry, and woodcut art, \u003ci\u003eSeeing Through Abstraction\u003c\/i\u003e offers a revisionist account of the development of modern Chinese literature and repositions it within the global history of the information age.\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eAnatoly Detwyler is an assistant professor of modern Chinese literature at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is a coeditor of \u003ci\u003eInformation: A Reader\u003c\/i\u003e and\u003ci\u003e Literary Information in China: A History\u003c\/i\u003e, both published by Columbia University Press in 2021.\u003c\/p\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 272\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.62 x 9 x 6 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e October 14, 2025\u003c\/div\u003e\n            ","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44848049127526,"sku":"9780231219884","price":72.52,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0599\/7255\/0758\/files\/vmu2SjaIHk9780231219884.webp?v=1772730320","url":"https:\/\/infinitylightwa.com\/products\/seeing-through-abstraction-literary-encounters-with-information-in-modern-china-paperback","provider":"Infinity Light","version":"1.0","type":"link"}