Witness Outside History: Play for Alteration in Modern Chinese Culture

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Yingjin Zhang’s article, “Witness Outside History: Play for Alteration in Modern Chinese Culture” address the issues encountered in the field of modern Chinese literature and the challenges to enlightenment as the main ideas of modernity. The author examines that the burst of modernity in China began in the late Qing (Zhang, 2013). Leo Ou-fan Lee champions a paradigm shift from modernity as wise, intelligent and knowledgeable ideas. Walter Benjamin’s theory of history and memory has inspired scholars who most of them openly proclaim and articulate their intent and objectives of retrieving repressed memories and as well as the lost voices from the wreckage of history and historiography.
I feel that Zhang has critically examined ways through which history and play may be redefined and readdressed to match with the modern Chinese culture. However, what role does history play in this case? It is important for people to unde...