China and the Wireless Undertow

Explores the increasingly intimate relationship between China and wireless technology, taking the wave as a central conceptProvides a new theoretical apparatus that reimagines key issues around technological evolution in a shifting geopolitical landscapeOffers a corrective to certain myopias of Western media theoryPresents a deep, historical engagement with issues and debates surrounding Chinese cybercultureBrings together contemporary media theory with modern Chinese philosophical thoughtIn the 21st century city, wireless waves constitute an imperceptible, immersive, all-encompassing environment. Nowhere is this more so than in China, where a hyperdense network of mobile media has restructured daily life.Anna Greenspan re-imagines the relationship between China and wirelessness by synthesising contemporary media theory with modern Chinese thought. It focuses specifically on the work of three critical figures: Tan Sitong ??? (1865 1898), Xiong Shili ??? (1885 1968) and Mou Zongsan ??? (1909 1995).

Anna Greenspan is Assistant Professor of Global Contemporary Media at NYU Shanghai. She is the author of Shanghai Future: Modernity Remade (Oxford University Press, 2014), India and the IT Revolution: Networks of Globalization (Palgrave, 2005). She also writes for a non-academic audience including these three books: Ccru: Writings 1997-2003 (Urbanomic, 2015), Future Mutations: Technology and the Evolution of the Species (Time Spiral Press, 2014) and Urbanatomy: Shanghai 2008 (China Intercontinental Press, 2008).