The Digital Banal and Sublime Justice in Chinese Internet Literature

Lina Qu

Jump to Content

Chapter 9 The Digital Banal and Sublime Justice in Chinese Internet Literature

In: Serial Killers and Serial Spectators

Author:

Lina Qu

Lina Qu
Search for other papers by Lina Qu in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed

Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 166–181

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004692800_011

Purchase instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):

€42.00€35.00 excl. VAT

Add to Cart

Redeem Access Token

Abstract

This chapter examines the web-based serial production and consumption of the Death Notice trilogy, a detective fiction by Zhou Haohui, which has recently been canonised and printed in both Chinese and English. The trilogy revolves around the serial killer duo Eumenides, named after the Greek Furies, whose signature is to alert the police with a “Death Notice” to preannounce their public execution of the victim. The series introduces the Chinese serial killers to popular imaginaries and appeals to public fantasies of vigilante justice. Illustrated by the crime fiction series, Chinese Internet literature is a form of digital seriality, which allows sequential instalments of a continuous narrative to be periodically released on a digital platform and consumed by an online audience. On the one hand, the chapter argues that with the numbing repetition of violence, serial murder becomes a suitable subject for Internet literature and digital banality. On the other hand, the diegetic world-building in the serial narrative aspires to an alternate social scenario centred on the sublime object of extra-legal justice. Murderous violence is thus subservient to the sublime world-making.

Citation Info

Save
Cite
Email this content

Share link with colleague or librarian

You can email a link to this page to a colleague or librarian:
Email this content
or copy the link directly:

https://brill.edhh.ma/abstract/book/9789004692800/BP000010.xml
The link was not copied. Your current browser may not support copying via this button.

Link copied successfully

Collapse
Expand

Serial Killers and Serial Spectators

Cultures, Narratives, and Representations

Series: Textxet: Studies in Comparative Literature, Volume: 107

Cover Serial Killers and Serial Spectators

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004692800

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 30 Nov 2023

Subjects
- Literature and Cultural Studies
  - Criticism & Theory
  - Comparative Studies & World Literature

Front Matter

Part 1 Seriality of Violence

Part 2 Moral Panics and Murderous Sublime

Part 3 Transnational Evil of Banality

Part 4 Spacetime of Violence

Back Matter

Metrics

	All Time	Past 365 days	Past 30 Days
Abstract Views	196	64	6
Full Text Views	5	0	0
PDF Views & Downloads	6	2	0

African Studies	Education	Media Studies
American Studies	History	Middle East and Islamic Studies
Ancient Near East and Egypt	Human Rights and Humanitarian Law	Musicology
Art History	International Law	Philosophy
Asian Studies	International Relations	Religious Studies
Biblical Studies	Jewish Studies	Slavic and Eurasian Studies
Biology	Languages and Linguistics	Social Sciences
Book History and Cartography	Life Sciences	Theology and World Christianity
Classical Studies	Literature and Cultural Studies

Subjects

Authors

Open Access

Product Information

Company

Contact

Chapter 9 The Digital Banal and Sublime Justice in Chinese Internet Literature

Abstract

Citation Info

Share link with colleague or librarian

Serial Killers and Serial Spectators

Cultures, Narratives, and Representations

Table of Contents

Metrics

Metrics