Madness and disability in contemporary Chinese film.
This article draws on recent research in the medical humanities to analyze two contemporary Chinese films: Zhang Yuan's Sons (1996) and Zhou Xiaowen's The Common People (1998). By portraying psychic and physical anguish in ways that refuse to divorce biology from culture, such films offer rare moral dialogues on biomedical issues and contribute a cross-cultural perspective invaluable to the task of responding to illness and suffering.
Knight
Deirdre Sabina
DS
Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, Smith College, Northampton, MA 01063, USA. dsknight@email.smith.edu
D044466:Asian People / Q000523:psychology*; D002547:Cerebral Palsy / Q000208:ethnology / Q000523:psychology*; D002681:China; D004992:Ethics, Medical; D005195:Family Relations / Q000208:ethnology; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000208:ethnology / Q000523:psychology*; D009040:Motion Pictures / Q000266:history; D012940:Social Problems