Locating China explores the political economy of place, space and popular culture in contemporary China. This multidisciplinary volume examines the mutual articulations between cultural imaginary and China's continuing drive toward urbanization. The consequences of this relationship are shown to be the development of new space and places, and new forms of spatial practices, thus weakening old concepts of the "local" and "locality."

The international group of scholars incorporate theoretical inquiries of space with grounded empirical work on multiple locals throughout China. From village discotheques in Guizhou to tourist villas, tea houses in Hainan to architectural extravaganzas in Shanshen the contributors argue that local places and local cultural practices are not constrained with the local scale. This therefore raises the question - how does the meaning transfer between the local, the national and the global?

Professor Jing Wang received her Ph. D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She taught at Duke University for sixteen years before joining the MIT FL&L faculty. She is the founder and organizer of the MIT Critical Policy Studies of China and a participating member of the MIT Laboratory for Branding Cultures. Professor Wang also serves as the Chair of the International Advisory Board of Creative Commons in China. While directing a digital animation project in collaboration with the Beijing Film Academy and MIT Comparative Media Studies, she is helping MIT building the infrastructure for Digital Humanities.

Professor Wang published several books and articles, among them, the award-winning The Story of Stone, High Culture Fever, and the editor of Locating China: Space, Place, and Popular Culture (availble in Paperback from Routledge), Popular Culture and the Chinese State, China’s Avant-Garde Fiction, Cinema and Desire (with Tani Barlow). Her current research interests include branding and marketing, advertising and new media, popular culture, and media and cultural policies, with an area focus on the People’s Republic of China. Her new book Brand New China: Advertising, Media, and Commercial Culture is now available from Harvard University Press.