ABSTRACT
This introductory chapter surveys the explosive youth culture in twenty-first-century China, which is not merely a result of the national and global turn to a post-Fordist neoliberal creative economy but also an active and powerful force catalyzing cultural innovations, social changes, political economy, and collective efforts of re-inventing a pluralistic and multivalent subject of youth (qingnian) in an age of enormous change, division, risk and uncertainty. Identifying three central themes: youth economy, crisis, and re-invention, this book seeks to offer a systematic investigation of a transmedial and multi-locale youth culture, with a thorough analysis of literary, cinematic, musical, operatic, pictorial, televisual, and social media representations about, for, and, most importantly, by disparate youth groups (e.g., high school dropouts, best-selling writers and filmmakers, cultural entrepreneurs and creative class, industrial and migrant workers, queer idols and fans, diasporic communities, “leftover women,” and young feminist activists).
