This is the first collection of translations of Chinese film theory to be published in English. By using translations rather than summaries, as other works have done, Chinese Film Theory provides readers with an introduction to the issues current in China's film circles. It includes eighteen chapters written by a broad range of writers--from well established scholars to young people at the beginning of their involvement in film in China. This collection indicates a trend (...) away from the study of external qualities of film and toward a study of the film itself. The volume has been carefully organized so that major issues are interrelated; thus, the book comprises an ongoing debate of film theory issues, progressing from earlier to most recent issues, following the debate concerning the relationship of film to literary arts, and looking at the debate over the relationship of film to culture. The book concludes that for the time being, debate has virtually ended because of the political situation in China. This book is an important new source to anyone interested in film studies, film theory, or Chinese studies. (shrink)

Introduction -- Approaching reality: Chinese ontology and the potentiality of time -- Cinema of thought: directed consciousness in Chinese Marxist film theory -- Soft film theory: life in all its presence and concreteness -- Fey Mou: the presence of an absence -- Cinema of ideation, cinema of play: the early Cantonese sound film -- Conclusion.

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.

This chapter discusses the slow burn of development which has impacted the Chinese landscape for a long time, despite the country’s urbanization. Although China’s modernization has been underway for the last 150 years, the country’s current global visibility has been mistaken for a sudden eruption of modernity. China has been through a variety of struggles, and the struggle between beauty and pragmatism is portrayed in films about the poor and manifested through the class aspirations of the new rich. In (...) this regard, the landscaping of China is mostly a narrative of continuous and traumatic pressure inflicted by the people on the motherland. These signs of struggle are, therefore, what articulate the Chinese landscape as a work of destruction and reconstruction in constant progress. (shrink)

ABSTRACTFilm clips are widely used in emotion research due to their relatively high ecological validity. Although researchers have established various film clip sets for different cultures, the few that exist related to Chinese culture do not adequately address positive emotions. The main purposes of the present study were to establish a standardised database of Chinese emotional film clips that could elicit more categories of reported positive emotions compared to the existing databases and to expand the available (...) film clips that can be used as neutral materials. Two experiments were conducted to construct the database. In experiment 1, 111 film clips were selected from more than one thousand Chinese movies for preliminary screening. After 315 participants viewed and evaluated these film clips, 39 excerpts were selected for further validation. In experiment 2, 147 participants watched and rated these 39 film clips, as well as another 8 excerpts chosen from the existing databases, to compare their validit... (shrink)

The essential purpose of this research study is to measure the impact of the applications of traditional Chinese philosophical thinking in film and television music composition; for measuring, the research study used open-ended and closed-ended questions related to the variables. This research study depends upon primary data analysis for collecting data associated with traditional Chinese philosophical thinking and music composition. These data were collected from film industries, directors, and actors in musical department research conducted in China. (...) For measuring, the research used smart PLS and run different results related to the variables, including independent and dependent variables. Indicator correlation, discriminant validity, and composite reliability are all tests run for measuring the research. The smart PLS Algorithm model explains the impact with each other. The overall result found a positive and significant effect on the applications of traditional Chinese philosophical thinking in film and television music composition. (shrink)

Documentary film-making is one of the most vibrant areas of media activity in China, with many independent film-makers producing documentaries on a range of sensitive socio-political matters, often bringing a strongly ethical approach. This book outlines the development of documentary film-making in mainland China and Taiwan, contrasts independent documentaries with official state productions, considers the production and distribution of independent documentary film-makers, and discusses the range and content of the documentaries. The book demonstrates the success of (...) Chinese independent documentary film-making, often winning award-winning titles and appearing at international film festivals. (shrink)

Resumo: A filosofia é um sistema que analisa as crenças, os conceitos mais básicos e a calma de temperamento e julgamento próprios de um filósofo. Os filmes de animação chineses fizeram grandes incursões nos mercados mundiais, nos últimos anos, apesar do fato de o setor de animação da China ser apenas um adolescente em comparação com o seu homólogo de décadas, na filosofia japonesa. Embora alguns estúdios de animação criem conteúdos especificamente para o público internacional, a indústria de animação chinesa (...) está principalmente preocupada com o mercado interno, porque acredita que a animação chinesa de alta qualidade tem potencial para se expandir. Artistas, filósofos e aqueles que trabalham nas indústrias criativas diretamente ligadas a isto têm um incentivo e um desafio para descobrir as histórias que podem ter sucesso nos mercados chinês e internacional. Neste artigo, analisam-se e se contrastam as características das filosofias de animação cinematográfica chinesas. Examinam-se tanto o contexto social quanto o cultural, o desenvolvimento econômico do mercado e o avanço tecnológico que moldaram o design filosófico da animação chinesa. As abordagens filosóficas avaliadas neste estudo são Donghua e Manhua, além da filosofia taoísta, exemplificada em Zhuangzi. (shrink)

During the past ten years, China’s micro film industry has made a rapid development aided by technological changes. Focusing on three types of micro films, this paper reveals some characteristics of China’s micro films within socialist cultural production with Chinese characteristics. This model departs from a past when the government managed everything during the Planned Economy, but is also different from the models of cultural policy in the West. The micro films examined are A Murder Case Triggered by (...) a Steamed Bun, a parody of film Wuji, market-conspiracy micro films such asImminent and The Only Choice, and social-welfare micro films likeI will give you happiness when I grow up. All of them bring forth the issue of coordination and harmonization of conflict between social-welfare and market efficiency. (shrink)

Resumo: Yang Naimei (杨耐梅) é uma estrela de cinema chinesa da primeira metade do século XX. O estudo discute a prática de vida e o significado de Yang Naimei como uma flapper chinesa. Flapper se refere à garota moderna que cresceu na Europa e na América, na década de 1920, e desafia o estilo de vida tradicional. Yang Naimei é boa em atuar como uma mulher indisciplinada, na tela. Ela teve muitos relacionamentos em sua vida. Ela acumulou riqueza e reputação (...) com sua carreira de atriz, que incorpora totalmente as características da flapper. No entanto, a sociedade da época não oferecia espaço suficiente para o desenvolvimento sustentável da geração de mulheres, como Yang Naimei, na vida econômica, política e pessoal. Com a sua juventude passada, ela foi eliminada pela indústria cinematográfica e sofreu com a pobreza e a doença, na segunda metade de sua vida. Tomando Yang Naimei como uma silhueta dos tempos, pode-se refletir sobre as voltas e reviravoltas do caminho de desenvolvimento das mulheres chinesas. (shrink)

The subject of the study is the color meaning in the film of the famous Chinese director Zhang Yimou "Hero", the conceptual understanding of color as the main semantic element of the artistic solution. The object of research is the techniques of visual solutions in cinema. The perception of color in the culture of different peoples differs in certain nuances and depends on many factors, including national traditions and historically established stereotypes. Films by Chinese, Korean, and Japanese (...) filmmakers are interesting from the point of view of color solutions, as they differ in artistic originality and often offer the Russian audience an extraordinary semantic solution of the idea not only at the level of comprehension of the content, but also at the level of a specific color palette. The author similarly examines the color symbolism of Zhang Yimou's film "Hero". The conceptual content of the visual-figurative series, the originality of the coloristic solution of the film is comprehended. The scientific novelty of the article lies in the study of the color symbolism of Zhang Yimou's film "Hero" in the aspect of the correlation between the perception of the coloristic solution of the visual series and the conceptual content of the film. The author comes to the conclusion that despite the ambivalence of perception of a particular color in visual art, the coloristic solution is predetermined by the conceptual content of each episode, so color becomes the leading semantic concept of Zhang Yimou's film "Hero". (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Theorizing Chinese Masculinity: Society and Gender in ChinaKwai-Cheung LoTheorizing Chinese Masculinity: Society and Gender in China. By Kam Louie. Cam-bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. 239. Hardcover U.S. $60.00.In Theorizing Chinese Masculinity: Society and Gender in China Kam Louie offers us a very clear and concise analysis of the cultural models of Chinese masculinity from ancient imperial times to the present age of transnational (...) contact. Although academic works on Chinese masculinity are not totally absent, systematic and thorough historical surveys of this topic are still rare. While gender studies of China are predominantly on femininity or other women-related issues, man as a gendered category has long escaped serious academic attention. Louie's book could be considered a pioneering effort to provide a rather comprehensive study of this subject. Besides describing in detail the historical development of the male image from premodern to contemporary times, Louie also focuses on the ways in which Chinese men have been represented under the Western gaze and how these representations have negotiated with the dominant Western culture.The fundamental structure of masculinity in China, according to Louie, operates according to the two poles of wen (literary attainment, cultural knowledge, the mental) and wu (martial valor, martial arts, the physical), which are far more complementary than antagonistic, although the wen polarity has always been prioritized over wu in the conventional Chinese mindset. wen maleness is exemplified by Confucius, the sage of the gentleman-scholar type, whereas Guan Yu, the God of War, represents the wu masculine ideal. These two archetypes of Chinese masculinity [End Page 497] converge in the stern observance of moral demands, self-restraint, and a resistance or even a misogynistic attitude to the faults associated with femininity (i.e., sexual pleasure, comfort, and loss of virility) in order to pursue lofty forms of justice and homosocial binding. The recent popularity of Hong Kong martial arts films in the West may help Western readers become accustomed to the traditional Chinese idea that the ideal balance of wen and wu places emphasis on strategy and learning as a means of avoiding the use of violence. Louie repeatedly asserts that, in the Chinese cultural context, all men by definition have some wen and/or some wu, thus negating a simplified dichotomy.The highest ideal of Chinese maleness is that of a single individual who can demonstrate at the highest level the cultural credentials and physical skills of wen and wu. That is to say, the great man who can hold a brush in his right hand and a sword or some other weapon in his left, demonstrating prowess in both kinds of effort. But in terms of their sex appeal, it is always the softer, cerebral, scholarly men of wen who are more attractive to Chinese women than their macho, brawny opposite. Other than analyzing the heterosexual relationships of Chinese manhood, Louie also provocatively suggests that brotherhood and passions between men are never simply homosocial but can have sexual implications. He supports this claim by making reference to many classical texts that depict men sleeping together, leading to strong emotional attachments and jealousy, as if they were in a romantic or erotic liaison. What distinguishes Louie's wen/wu duality from the conventional yin/yang binary opposition (which is also an artificial difference that defines the Chinese male in relation to Western men and reinforces the stereotype of a feminized Chinese masculinity) is that he believes his dyad of Chinese masculinity to be more resilient, flexible, and adaptable to historical change, hybridizing with Western culture while simultaneously exerting its own global influence on non-Chinese cultures.Covering a vast range of historical and contemporary materials and a variety of genres, from classical philosophy to traditional vernacular fiction (e.g., The Romance of the Three Kingdoms and The Water Margin), through Lao She's early twentieth-century novel The Two Mas, the subversive portrayals of men by modern Chinese women writers, to contemporary Hong Kong action cinema—all in a relatively slim volume—Louie is at his best, for example, when observing and depicting character, but he is not so good at analyzing his texts on a... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Chinese Aesthetics in a Global Context by Zhirong ZhuYiping Zhang (bio)Chinese Aesthetics in a Global Context. By Zhirong Zhu 朱志榮. Translated by Xurong Kong. Singapore: Springer Nature, 2022. Pp. xi + 327. eBook €85.59, isbn 978-981-16-7749-6. Zhirong Zhu's Chinese Aesthetics in a Global Context (hereafter Chinese Aesthetics) is a translation of the author's Chinese book, which was originally published by East China Normal (...) University Press in June 2012. This book explores aesthetic issues in Chinese culture and traditions, including underlying humanistic values, with Western theories as a reference point. The current state of philosophy in China cannot be narrated without contemporary theories of aesthetics in the Western world. Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism played a long and unique intellectual role in China's history, and this book highlights their positive contributions. For instance, the author's two important themes are the connection of society with nature and the integration of humans with nature. Through a clear and elegant philosophical account of Chinese society, Zhu constructed a Chinese aesthetic theory within a global context and with a global perspective. As Kang Liu points out in the foreword, aesthetics became a phenomenon in China in the late 19th century, when Chinese society incorporated Western knowledge and entered the modern world, whereas aesthetics was part of the enlightenment period of Europe from the 17th to the 18th century. A major paradigm shift occurred in China, which began in 1978 with the start of the Reform and Opening-up. In the 1980s, as Liu further notes, the aesthetic fever testifies to intellectuals' universalism after decades of self-imposed isolation. Most importantly, Liu explains that emancipation gave rise to intellectuals theorizing on thinkers from Hayek to Sartre, from Bakhtin to Derrida, as well as through novels, films, and poems. This paradigm shift gave rise to a decade of reflection on culture or culture fever. Globalization marked a new era for China, with mass translations of foreign literature, theories, arts, and most importantly, comparative literature. It was during this time that aesthetics emerged and a political allegorical mode of inquiry, which defined aesthetic studies around the world of academics and intellectuals, emerged in China as a universal value. Without a doubt, Chinese Aesthetics is an important book, providing an in-depth and comprehensive account of Chinese aesthetics in a global context. [End Page 1]In the 25-page introduction (Chapter 1), made up of four sections, the author discusses the origins of aesthetic theory, offers an evaluation of modern Chinese aesthetics research, and proposes the establishment of Chinese aesthetics with a global perspective. The introduction further outlines the characteristics of aesthetics, as well as the contents and research methods of aesthetic theory. Perhaps "Establishing Chinese Aesthetics with a Global Perspective" is the most interesting part of the introduction. It discusses both Chinese tradition and contemporary Chinese culture. The author notes, for instance, that in ancient China the aesthetic experience was described as miaowu 妙悟 or "wondrous enlightenment." This understanding of the contingency and suddenness of wondrous enlightenment has formed a long-standing and profound tradition, which is richer and deeper than Western intuition theory (p. 9). Zhu aims to contextualise aesthetic theory as, firstly, an expression of diversity and national consciousness. Secondly, it should reflect both historical and contemporary consciousness. Thirdly, in aesthetic theory, history and logic should be promoted in a unified way. Fourthly, aesthetic theory should unify evidence and speculation. Chapter 2, "Aesthetic Activity," discusses the origins, nature, psychology, and characteristics of aesthetic activities. Art, for instance, is a higher-level aesthetic activity and beauty is of a lower level. As Zhu explains, aesthetic activity is but one activity among various activities in the globalized space. It is a process that starts with childhood and continues to maturity. As society evolves and advances, these two human developmental stages further advance the subject's spirit. Throughout the subject's entire life, the process of self-construction occurs and is an activity of spiritual enjoyment. There is an important continuity between Chapters 2 and 3, on the "Aesthetic Object." For the aesthetic activity to be completed, the aesthetic image needs to be created. This image is created through the... (shrink)

In the West, Harvard philosopher Michael Sandel is a thinker of unusual prominence. In China, he's a phenomenon, greeted by vast crowds. China Daily reports that he has acquired a popularity "usually reserved for Hollywood movie stars." China Newsweek declared him the "most influential foreign figure" of the year. In Sandel the Chinese have found a guide through the ethical dilemmas created by the nation's swift embrace of a market economy--a guide whose communitarian ideas resonate with aspects of China's (...) own rich and ancient philosophical traditions. Chinese citizens often describe a sense that, in sprinting ahead, they have bounded past whatever barriers once held back the forces of corruption and moral disregard. The market economy has lifted millions from poverty but done little to define ultimate goals for individuals or the nation. Is the market all there is? In this context, Sandel's charismatic, interactive lecturing style, which roots moral philosophy in real-world scenarios, has found an audience struggling with questions of their responsibility to one another. Encountering China brings together leading experts in Confucian and Daoist thought to explore the connections and tensions revealed in this unlikely episode of Chinese engagement with the West. The result is a profound examination of diverse ideas about the self, justice, community, gender, and public good. With a foreword by Evan Osnos that considers Sandel's fame and the state of moral dialogue in China, the book will itself be a major contribution to the debates that Sandel sparks in East and West alike.--. (shrink)

By creatively expanding Deleuze's concept of the time-image crystal, I productively fold together and engineer an encounter between two comparable cinematic movements otherwise separated by huge vistas of time and space. Here, I work to plicate the post-war Italian neorealist movement which Deleuze saw inaugurating the modern cinema, with a ‘postsocialist’ mainland Chinese movement that I playfully call ‘neo-realism’. The films of both historical moments formulate comparable break-away cinemas which are often considered moral or socially responsible art cinemas best (...) approached through André Bazin's ‘ontological’ film philosophy lens. By using Deleuze, however, I hope to move beyond these realist discussions to explore how both movements are also fruitfully thought in terms of introducing distinct yet analogous mental relations into the image during historical junctures defined by radically transforming psycho-geographies. Like Deleuze's discussions of neorealism, neo-realism is considered a loose impulse or mode that collectively bears witness to confusing and bewildering mental experiences from within a turbulent period of cultural, ideological and historical upheaval: which demands new ways of perceiving, thinking and acting. Without wanting to fall into a problematic auteur paradigm, I necessarily employ the films of Wang Xiaoshuai as emblematic examples of the wider impulse or trend. Indeed, Wang's films perfectly reify a new ethico-aesthetic form of Chinese cinema marked by a proliferation of new spaces, characters, experiences and narrative structures. Here, I also strive to do what Deleuze did not in his writing upon film, and explore the break-ups, breakdowns and breakthroughs in specific relation to a complex contextual web of political and cinematic ecosystems. Throughout this process I try to put Deleuze to work by using the films and context to re-interrogate and re-evaluate the time-image models as they appear within and across his Cinema books. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Images of Women in Chinese Thought and Culture: Writings from the Pre-Qin Period through the Song DynastyXiufen LuImages of Women in Chinese Thought and Culture: Writings from the Pre-Qin Period through the Song Dynasty. Edited by Robin R. Wang. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2003. Pp. xiv + 449.Images of Women in Chinese Thought and Culture: Writings from the Pre-Qin Period through the Song Dynasty, edited (...) by Robin R. Wang, is an excellent collection of English translations from the Classical Chinese of writings on women. As the title indicates, the book starts with writings from before the founding of the Qin, China's first bureaucratic state, in 221 B.C.E., and ends with the Tang and Song dynasties (618-1279 C.E.), a period that has been considered the richest in Chinese history in terms of literature and art production.The anthology includes fifty-four selections arranged in five parts based on a conventionally accepted chronology of the texts. There is a brief introduction at the beginning of each selection that helps familiarize the reader with the texts and the historical and cultural context out of which women's issues have arisen. The first two parts include selections from oracle-bone inscriptions, the earliest Chinese writings ever discovered; texts from the major ancient philosophical schools, such as Confucianism, Daoism, Mohism, and Legalism; and folk literature together with poems by some of the best-known poets of their time. These writings not only encompass the intellectual foundations of Chinese civilization but also provide valuable sources for understanding how perceptions of gender relations have been shaped by the Chinese cosmological and philosophical view of the world. In text number 3, the Classic of Changes (Yijing), women and men are understood as the highest embodiments of yin and yang, the two fundamental forces that characterize the development of the universe. Since these forces are understood as both hierarchical—as they are manifested in the interrelation between the earth and sky—and, more importantly, complementary to each other, women's roles in family and society are thus recognized as distinct from, yet complementary to, those of men.In part 3, the reader is led through the Han (202 B.C.E.-220 C.E.), China's longest-lived dynasty. Writings from this period reveal the processes by which the ancestral wisdom, especially the Confucian Classics, were codified through government-sponsored scholarship. The writings of Dong Zhongshu (195-115 B.C.E.) and The Comprehensive Discussion in the White Tiger Hall (Baihu tong) were two of the texts responsible for the establishment of the official Confucian ideology of the Han. Texts drawn from this period also include works by Ban Zhao (45-114 C.E.), China's first and most influential female historian and scholar. Her writings were originally intended as moral guidance for women and were regarded in Chinese society as key texts in women's education up to the twentieth century.The six selections included in part 4 are comparatively less well known to English readers, except for The Ballad of Mulan, which became popular in the West after the story of Mulan was made into an animated movie in 1998. The other writings in this part have only been translated into English since the 1970s. Among them, [End Page 496] English versions of Family Instructions to the Yan Clan and Women in the Standard Histories were prepared especially for this volume. These writings reveal how Neo-Confucianism and Neo-Daoism became the principal approaches to comprehending the social reality and gender relations following the chaotic disintegration of the Han dynasty, and they help explain the increasing dominance of Confucian ideology and its implications for women.Finally, in part 5, there are included among other selections some well-crafted love stories written in the classical language by eminent men of letters and works by several great poets (both men and women) of the Tang and Song periods. In this section there are writings by some of the most familiar names of the period, such as Bojuyi (772-846 C.E.), Yuan Zhen (779-831 C.E.), and Li Qingzhao (1081-1151 C.E.). These authors have... (shrink)

A few days ago, the 1994 film festival sponsored by Human Rights Watch occurred. One of the movies shown was Moving the Mountain, directed by a famous movie director from Britain and produced by an American studio. The film was about a young man from mainland China named Li Lu.

This article presents a review of Hard to Believe, a compelling documentary reporting the forced organ procurement and death of Chinese prisoners of conscience. The documentary is targeted to ignite political and public pressure to stop these practices that are thought to be motivated by financial and political gain. Narrated by journalist and author Ethan Gutmann, the documentary pricks at the collective conscience, as credible witnesses provide evidence that point to an abrogation of every ethical principle ascribed to legitimate (...) organ procurement. (shrink)

The informative purpose of the research study is to describe the Applications of modern dance and creation in Chinese dance from dialectical materialist philosophy. This research study was conducted in china to measure Chinese and modern dance from materialist philosophy. Research based on primary data analysis for gathering the data developed almost 10 to 12 questions related to the variables. The Chinese dancers, department of Chinese dancers, film industries, etc., are all research study participants. For (...) measuring, the research study used smart PLS software, and run results included composite reliability, segmentations, smart PLS Algorithm, indicator correlations, and signification analysis related to the modern dance creation performance in China and the effect of dialectical materialist philosophy. Overall, the research found a positive and significant application of modern dance and creation from dialectical materialist philosophy. Modern dance and creation have a direct influence on dialectical materialist philosophy. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This essay is motivated by the seeming contradiction that Korean unification is sought after by most Koreans yet speculations about the social and cultural changes it might bring are almost absent. This may be because Korean unification denotes a series of differences contrasted to the present—because it is a potent “master symbol” with one foot in utopian speculation and the other in policy studies. In this essay, I outline some of the complexities, starting with an examination of illustrations of (...) unification in textbooks for the tensions and contradictions they introduce. I then turn to fiction and film, sketching not only what some South Koreans hope will happen after unification with the North but, indeed, the limits of their imagination regarding what the future will hold for South Korea. In the end, I concur with Grinker that representations of unification are “utopian,” but I object to the association of “utopia” with a socially engineered straitjacket. On the contrary, the utopias projected here suggest stepping off a precipice into worlds unknown, futures defined by their radical difference from today. The end of the essay locates these more imaginative dimensions of Korean unification in the “hope” of Ernst Bloch. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 14.1 (2004) 47-54 [Access article in PDF] Ethical Guidelines for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research*(A Recommended Manuscript) Adopted on 16 October 2001Revised on 20 August 2002 Ethics Committee of the Chinese National Human Genome Center at Shanghai, Shanghai 201203 Human embryonic stem cell (ES) research is a great project in the frontier of biomedical science for the twenty-first century. Be- cause the research (...) involves the use of human embryos, it triggers serious debate on ethical issues. Opponents consider the embryo to be an early form of human life that should be respected and not destroyed. However, the majority of scientists support embryonic stem cell research, believing that it offers good prospects for the treatment of diseases that have remained incurable until now and so will benefit humankind. The Ethics Committee of the Department of Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications of the Chinese National Human Genome Center at Shanghai seriously discussed the ethical debate initiated by embryonic stem cell research. We concluded that we should support the scientists of our country in actively carrying out human embryonic stem cell research for the noble cause of "medicine being a beneficent art." For the healthy and orderly development of human embryonic stem cell research in our country, we put forward the following recommended Ethical Guidelines for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research as a reference for leaders, administrative departments, and related scientists. Preface Article 1. Human embryonic stem cells are the primitive cells that play the main role in the growth and development of a human body. These [End Page 47] primitive cells have the potential for infinite proliferation, self-renewal, and multi-directional differentiation. If scientists can discover the mechanism of differentiation of human embryonic stem cells, it will be possible to induce differentiation of human embryonic stem cells to form various types of human cells for clinical cell therapy. If human embryonic stem cell research can be integrated with modern biomedical engineering techniques, it also will be possible to make repair and replacement of human tissues and organs a reality. Article 2. There are two ways to classify human embryonic stem cells. One way is to classify them according to their potential for differentiation. There could be three kinds of stem cells: totipotent stem cells, pluripotent stem cells, and unipotent stem cells.A totipotent stem cell has the potential to develop into a whole individual. It can differentiate into the more than 200 cell types in the whole body, construct any tissue or organ of the body, and finally develop into a whole individual. The fertilized egg and the cleavage cells at the very early stage of embryonic development are totipotent stem cells.A pluripotent stem cell has the potential to differentiate into many cell types derived from the three embryonic layers. However, it has lost the capacity to develop into a complete organism.A unipotent stem cell is derived from the further differentiation of the pluripotent stem cell. It can differentiate only into one cell type such as a hematopoietic stem cell, neural stem cell, and others.The other way is to classify human stem cells according to their source. There could be two kinds of human stem cells: embryonic stem cells and tissue stem cells (also called adult stem cells). The former involves experimentation with embryos, which has serious ethical implications. Ethical issues associated with the latter are mainly expressed in the various opinions regarding the allocation of health resources. Article 3. Human embryonic stem cells are the group of cells called the blastocyst inner cell mass during the early stage of embryonic development. They are the main source of totipotent stem cells, and hence the focal and hot point in stem cell research. Studies on the clinical application of embryonic stem cells probably will involve use of the somatic cell nucleus transfer (SCNT) technique, which destroys the early human embryo. At present, the ethical and moral debate is very serious in human embryonic stem cell research regarding whether the research will develop... (shrink)

James A. Diefenbeck, Wayward Reflections on the History ofPhilosophyThomas R. Flynn Sartre, Foucault and Historical Reason. Volume 1:Toward an Existential Theory of HistoryMark Golden and Peter Toohey Inventing Ancient Culture:Historicism, Periodization and the Ancient WorldZenonas Norkus Istorika: Istorinis IvadasEverett Zimmerman The Boundaries of Fiction: History and theEighteenth‐Century British Novel.

In the film “Kaili Blues” by Bi Gan, intricate clues create complex connections between the plots steered by various characters. This relationship manifests in splitting time and alternating between dream and reality. This article analyzes Bi Gan’s approach to temporality and dreams by focusing on how he employs various film metaphors to deal with poetic narratives in his films. The article consists of three sections: First, it introduces the (puzzle) storytelling form of “Kaili Blues” as a promising area (...) in many Chinese films. Second, it examines how puzzle films contribute to the ambiguity (plots) between characters from the perspective of infinite games. Moreover, third, the article discusses the two levels of metaphors in “Kaili Blues” that result from the condensation and displacement of metaphors, including the mutual projection of roles caused by the time-forking effect and the audience’s associations caused by the significance of dreams in Chinese tradition (or local) culture. (shrink)