Between Sovereignty and Coloniality--Manchukuo Literature and Film

This dissertation studies the cultural imagination of Manchukuo the nation (1932-1945). As a nominal nation-state imposed upon Chinese Manchuria by the Empire of Japan, Manchukuo is a contradiction between sovereignty and coloniality, both due to the historical competition of geopolitical powers in the region and its multiethnic composition of the national community. In its short political life, Manchukuo bears witness to an unprecedented flourish of literary and film production. This textual corpus remains understudied and its relationship to Chinese literature and culture or Japanese literature and culture is insufficiently explored. Armed with postcolonial and minority discourse, this project examines how Manchukuo cultural production mediates the notion of the nation and sovereignty in the context of Japanese imperialism. The close reading and critical interrogation of this body of literary and filmic texts shall generate provocative questions for the reconstruction of Chinese literary studies and East Asian studies. The body of the dissertation consists of four interrelated arguments. Framing the reading in the context of recent scholarly debate on “the Sinophone,” Chapter two considers Manchukuo literature as a “minor literature” whose distinction lies in its writers’ use of “deterritorialized” Chinese, Japanese, and Russian. Multilingualism and multiethnicity are therefore the (trans)national features of Manchukuo literary production. This literary “sovereignty” is then re-examined through the representation of Manchukuo’s women and family in Chapter three. Interpreting coloniality through reading gender relations, this chapter highlights the unusual progressive portrayal of women in Manchukuo. This discovery of Manchukuo women’s autonomy and mobility is reinforced in the interpretation of Manchukuo’s dramatic feature films. Working through feminist critique of gender division and looking into magazines of the era, chapter four and five analyze the films’ explanation of a contradiction within Japanese imperialism. This contradiction of “sovereignty” and “submission” gets further elaboration in Chapter five. An interpretation of the star text of Ri Kōran reveals her stardom and Manchukuo film musical provides a unique anti-romantic “affiliation” of the Manchukuo nation