SARS Stories: Affect and Archive of the 2003 Pandemic

by Belinda Kong

Overview

In SARS Stories, Belinda Kong delves into the cultural archive of the 2003 SARS pandemic, examining Chinese-language creative works and social practices at the epicenters of the outbreak in China and Hong Kong. As the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted issues of anti-Asian racism and sinophobia, Kong traces how Chinese people navigated the SARS pandemic and created meaning amid crisis through cultures of epidemic expression. From sentimental romances and Cantopop songs to raunchy sex comedies and crowdsourced ghost tales, unexpected and minor genres and creators of Chinese popular culture highlight the resilience and humanity of those living through the pandemic. Rather than narrating pandemic life in terms of crisis and catastrophe, Kong argues that these works highlight Chinese practices of community, care, and love amid disease. She also highlights the persistence of orientalism in anglophone accounts of SARS index patients and global reporting on COVID-era China. Kong shows how the Chinese experiences of living with SARS can reshape global feelings toward pandemic social life and foster greater fellowship in the face of pandemics.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781478027812
Publisher:	Duke University Press
Publication date:	12/18/2023
Series:	Sinotheory
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
File size:	505 KB

About the Author

Belinda Kong is Professor of Asian Studies and English at Bowdoin College and author of Tiananmen Fictions Outside the Square: The Chinese Literary Diaspora and the Politics of Global Culture.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments  vii
Introduction  1
1. Pandemic Ordinariness: Epidemic Romances and Female Sentiments  33
2. Pandemic Humor: Digital Prosociality for the Epidemic Socius  77
3. Pandemic Resilience: Deextinction and the Hong Kong Cantophone  112
4. Pandemic First Patients: Deperilizing the Anglophone SARS Archive  180
Afterword  238
Notes  241
Bibliography  267
Index  285

Editorial Reviews

"As our contemporary pandemic commonsense swings from jingoism to denialism, reading Belinda Kong's incredibly learned and daring book has been not just enlightening but, dare I say, therapeutic. Kong has taught me to think anew about pandemic epistemologies in relation to race, empire, and power while giving name to my own desire for 'pandemic prosociality.' Written with warmth, curiosity, and verve, SARS Stories will speak to anyone and everyone who has tried to make sense of the past several years of pandemic life."--Sunny Xiang, author of "Tonal Intelligence: The Aesthetics of Asian Inscrutability During the Long Cold War"

"As we still come to grips with the COVID-19 pandemic, Belinda Kong's SARS Stories provides a powerful testament to the ways in which cultural discourse--fiction, film, and digital media--shape our understanding of pandemic narratives. In the process, Kong reveals the often tenuous line between the truths conveyed through 'fiction' and the lies that sometimes haunt the 'facts.'"--Michael Berry, author of "Translation, Disinformation, and Wuhan Diary: Anatomy of a Transpacific Cyber Campaign"

From the Publisher

As our contemporary pandemic commonsense swings from jingoism to denialism, reading Belinda Kong’s incredibly learned and daring book has been not just enlightening but, dare I say, therapeutic. Kong has taught me to think anew about pandemic epistemologies in relation to race, empire, and power while giving name to my own desire for ‘pandemic prosociality.’ Written with warmth, curiosity, and verve, SARS Stories will speak to anyone and everyone who has tried to make sense of the past several years of pandemic life.

Tonal Intelligence: The Aesthetics of Asian Inscrutability During the Long Cold War - Sunny Xiang

As we still come to grips with the COVID-19 pandemic, Belinda Kong’s SARS Stories provides a powerful testament to the ways in which cultural discourse—fiction, film, and digital media—shape our understanding of pandemic narratives. In the process, Kong reveals the often tenuous line between the truths conveyed through ‘fiction’ and the lies that sometimes haunt the ‘facts.’

Translation, Disinformation, and Wuhan Diary: Anatomy of a Transpacific Cyber Campaign - Michael Berry