Ruth Y. Y. Hung

A study of Hu Feng as a literary critic and case study on how intellectual work can respond to political pressure.In this book, Ruth Y. Y. Hung provides a study of Hu Feng (1902–1985) as a critic, writer, and editor within the context of the People's Republic of China's political ascendancy. A member of the Japanese Communist Party and the Chinese Communist Party, Hu rose to fame in the 1940s and became a representative persecuted intellectual soon after 1949. "The Hu Feng Case" of 1955-more than a decade before the Cultural Revolution-was a significant, large-scale campaign of intellectual persecution. Hung examines Hu's work as a literary critic in this context, and examines the intricate historical and sociopolitical forces against which intellectuals in his milieu in twentieth-century China adopted Marxism as a measure of their critical position. She demonstrates how this first generation of modern Chinese literary critics practiced criticism, examining the skills and arguments they used to negotiate their institutional and ideological relations with state-party power. This exceptional case of intellectual engagement offers broader insight on critical literature's humanistic aims and methods in the context of intellectual globalization and changing political climates.

A study of Hu Feng as a literary critic and case study on how intellectual work can respond to political pressure.In this book, Ruth Y. Y. Hung provides a study of Hu Feng (1902–1985) as a critic, writer, and editor within the context of the People's Republic of China's political ascendancy. A member of the Japanese Communist Party and the Chinese Communist Party, Hu rose to fame in the 1940s and became a representative persecuted intellectual soon after 1949. "The Hu Feng Case" of 1955-more than a decade before the Cultural Revolution-was a significant, large-scale campaign of intellectual persecution. Hung examines Hu's work as a literary critic in this context, and examines the intricate historical and sociopolitical forces against which intellectuals in his milieu in twentieth-century China adopted Marxism as a measure of their critical position. She demonstrates how this first generation of modern Chinese literary critics practiced criticism, examining the skills and arguments they used to negotiate their institutional and ideological relations with state-party power. This exceptional case of intellectual engagement offers broader insight on critical literature's humanistic aims and methods in the context of intellectual globalization and changing political climates.

Animal Lives through Five Centuries of Art and Science confronts a deep paradox: humanity's greatest achievements in art, science, and philosophy have often relied on the systematic subjugation of animals. This pioneering interdisciplinary work traces how Western knowledge systems have turned animal suffering into spectacle and commodity, from Renaissance anatomy theaters where Leonardo da Vinci painted ermines as symbols of purity while their real-world counterparts were skinned for aristocratic fashion, to today's genetically engineered GloFish. Through six compelling case studies--including the extinction of the quagga, Victorian vivisection debates, and industrial farming--Ruth Y.Y. Hung shows how the same imagination fueling cultural progress has also been used to justify domination. Drawing on thinkers from Erich Auerbach to Donna Haraway, the book offers a radical rethinking of knowledge itself. It reveals that animals have only been understood through frameworks that either aestheticize or erase their lives. Yet, amid these histories of violence, moments of resistance appear: the defiant stare of a vivisected dog, Indigenous cosmologies honoring ecological kinship, and Buddhist deer challenging human-centered views. Hung advocates for "interspecies reimagination," urging a shift from extraction to reciprocity, and calls on readers to develop a new ethics where knowledge serves rather than controls life.