Death and life of fiction modern monsters

More about the book

Taowu, a mythological Chinese monster symbolizing ignorance, has been revived recently by historians and writers to illustrate the violent arc of Chinese utopian modernity. Taowu brings unheard of evils and sufferings to man, undermining humanity in favor of financial gain. This publication, generated by a monumental exhibition at the 2012 Taipei Biennial, and curated by noted cultural critic Anselm Franke, uses this mythological Chinese figure as the starting point for a series of essays addressing the current crisis. Modern Monsters functions as a conceptual and theoretical reader in conversation with the exhibition and deeply controversial subject. Comprised of 23 essays the book includes original contributions from the curators and editors Anselm Franke and Brian Kuan Wood along with Taiwanese literary historian David Der-Wei Wang. Other contributors are Nabil Ahmed, Eric Baudelaire, Chen Chieh-Jen Li, Hu Fang, Mark Fisher, James T. Hong, Henri Lefebvre, Masao Matsuda, Ian Svenonius, Sophie Wahnich, and many more