Carlos Rojas is Associate Professor of Chinese Cultural Studies, Women’s Studies, and Arts of the Moving Image at Duke University.
[Rojas] covers much ground, from the Qin Dynasty (c. 200 BC) to
postmodern art, and demonstrates just how powerful the idea of the
Wall has become in modern China.
*Times Literary Supplement*
Carlos Rojas’s deceptively compact cultural study suggests
convincingly that the search for meaning in the Wall lies neither
with the iconic imagery nor the literal structure itself, but
somewhere in the gaps between, where imagination can run
rampant—and frequently has. As it turns out, investigating the many
and varied symbolic uses of a wall—the tensions between the need to
protect and imprison, to guard against and to tear down, to blazon
forth and to shut out—provides a very simple and natural key to
opening up the Chinese culture as a whole.
*PopMatters*
Rojas is among a vanguard of scholars applying perspectives of the
emerging field of cultural studies to China. The book is a history
of what people have thought about the Great Wall. Rojas argues that
inherited beliefs helped shape the wall’s subsequent history. He
traces the rise and fall of Chinese perceptions of long defensive
walls from a symbol of Qin dynasty (221–206 BCE) oppression to Ming
dynasty (1368–1644) insularity and defensive failure. Rojas
contends that in the 20th century, Westerners influenced Chinese
nationalists to adopt the Ming Great Wall as a symbol of national
unity and power…Rojas’s clear, lively prose makes his work an
excellent choice for undergraduate cultural studies.
*Choice*
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