I examine the formation of power as it relates to canonicity through online delivery systems, Amazon and Goodreads, and the academic sector in the contemporary period. The digital age has radically changed literature by providing for a textuality of literature that is multi-channeled, and this project responds by engaging new critical lenses for…

This dissertation aims to understand the apparent failure of speech in post-Mao literature to fulfill its conventional functions of representation and communication. In order to understand this pattern, I begin by looking back on the utility of speech for nation-building in modern China. In addition to literary analysis of key authors and works,…