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| The Conceptual Investigation and Discursive Critique of “SinoFuturism” in North American Academia |
| WANG Jin1, MA Xiao2 |
1. Faculty of Foreign Studies, Jinan University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, 510632;
2. College of Liberal Arts, Jinan University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, 510632 |
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Abstract Currently, the theoretical trend of “SinoFuturism” has gradually gained prominence in North American academia. It focuses on science-fiction narratives of China’s rapid technological development and, within the discourse of literary and cultural theory, imagines contemporary China as the future of the world. On the theoretical level, this trend reflects on the crisis of capitalist modernity and draws on such theoretical resources as technological accelerationism and digital modernity to articulate the ideas that “China is the future” and that the global center is shifting, thus construing China as an already-arrived technological utopia. On the level of literary criticism, it reads the image of “future China” in Chinese science fiction as a literary representation of technological authoritarianism and collectivism. Although this emerging trend reflects North American attention to China’s rise, at a deeper level, it still reproduces the limitations of techno-Orientalism, treating China as an Other that is both fascinating and alarming, while presenting a temporal politics of the “future” through imagination and misreading. A theoretical critique of SinoFuturism in North American academia would help, from the perspective of global civilizational exchange and mutual learning, to reconsider how China may participate in the construction of global future narratives through its indigenous lived experience, technological discourse, and science-fiction practice, and thus promote the emergence of a theoretical model of “China Futurism” grounded in a Chinese standpoint and oriented toward dialogue with the world.
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Received: 10 March 2026
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2026, Vol. 43 
