Cultivating heterotopia: Ideology and affect in Chinese gardens
Publication Type
Video
Publication Date
12-2022
Abstract
Although gardens are typically appreciated as peaceful spaces of apolitical serenity, this essay highlights how they can provide new sites and sensibilities that complicate our understanding of politics. First it compares imperial gardens in China, Thailand, and Russia to examine how they heterotopically construct social order and world order. Here heterotopia not only integrates a diverse assemblage of materials from Europe and Asia, but also plays with different ideologies, experiences, and concepts. The paper then considers how these aesthetic conventions and practical techniques explain ideology and excite affect at two national war memorials: the Nanjing Massacre Memorial in China and the Yasukuni Shrine in Japan. Here garden-building is theory-building: by producing new sites and sensibilities, it creatively shapes our understanding of politics, social order, and world order.
Discipline
Asian Studies | Philosophy
Research Areas
Political Science
Publisher
Peter Lang
Citation
CALLAHAN, William A., "Cultivating heterotopia: Ideology and affect in Chinese gardens" (2022). Research Collection School of Social Sciences. Paper 4378.
https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/4378
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/4378
Additional URL
https://www.history.ac.uk/news-events/videos-podcasts/cultivating-heterotopia-politics-ideology-affect-gardens