Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Reading Chinese Avant-garde Art and Independent Cinema in Context -- Part 1: Re-creating Urban Spacein Avant-garde Art -- 1: Discourse and Displacement Contemplating Beijing's Urban Landscape -- 2: Beijing: Yin Xiuzhen's The Ruined City -- 3: Globalism or Nationalism? Cai Guoqiang, Zhang Huan, and Xu Bingin New York -- Part 2: China's Lost Youth through the Lens of Independent Cinema -- 4:New Chinese Cinema of the "Sixth Generation" A Distant Cry of Forsaken Children -- 5: Behind Chinese Walls The Uncanny Power of Matriarchy in Wang Chao's Anyang Orphan -- Chapter 6: The Imagery of Postsocialist Trauma in Peacock, Shanghai Dreams, and Stolen Life -- Part 3: In Quest of Meaningin a Spiritual Void Film and Video -- 7: Jia Zhangke's Cinematic Trilogy A Journey across the Ruins of Post-Mao China -- 8: The Video Works of Yang Fudong: An Ultimate Escape from a Global Nightmare -- 9: Ning Hao's Incense A Curious Tale of Earthly Buddhism -- Postlude: Chinese Artists and Filmmakers at the Beginning of a New Century -- Notes -- Chinese Glossary of Names, Titles, and Terms -- Filmography -- Bibliography -- Index.