The Business of Culture: Cultural Entrepreneurs in China and Southeast Asia, 1900-65 (Contemporary Chinese Studies)

This volume explores how the rise of entrepreneurship impacted the business of culture in China and Southeast Asia between the late nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries. It argues that paradigms of cultural agency based on singular categories such as "author" or "filmmaker" overlook one of the most dramatic modern transformations in the cultural sphere: the increased tendency of individuals and organizations to engage in multiple modes of cultural production across social, occupational, and geographic borders. A Suzhou migrant, for instance, might cobble together a career as a principal, translator, and health food manufacturer. How do we account for these plural orientations? In answering this question, contributors draw on a new analytical rubric: cultural entrepreneurship. Contributors: Robert Culp, Grace Fong, Wang Gungwu, Michael Gibbs Hill, Eugenia Lean, Chua Ai Lin, Christopher G. Rea, Sin Yee Theng, Nicolai Volland, Sai-Shing Yung.