Hsingyuan Tsao is Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of British Columbia. Roger T. Ames is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa and editor of Philosophy East and West. His many books include Confucian Cultures of Authority (coedited with Peter D. Hershock) and the translation (with D. C. Lau) of the classic Chinese work Sun Bin: The Art of Warfare, both also published by SUNY Press.

Acknowledgments
List of Illustrations

A Dilemma in Contemporary Chinese Art: An Introduction
Hsingyuan Tsao & Roger T. Ames

1. Reading and Misreading: Double Entendre in Locally Oriented Logos
Hsingyuan Tsao

2. Reading Xu Bing's A Book from the Sky: A Case Study in the Making of Meaning
Roger T. Ames

3. Seriousness, Playfulness, and a Religious Reading of Tianshu
Kuan-Hung Chen

4. Making Natural Languages in Contemporary Chinese Art
Richard Vinograd

5. The Living Word: Xu Bing and the Art of Chan Wordplay
April Liu

6. Transmission of Meanings: A Study of Shen Wai Shen (Body Outside Body) by Xu Bing
Kazuko Kameda-Madar

7. The Space Between: Cross-Cultural Encounters in Contemporary Chinese Art
Jerome Silbergeld

Appendix 1. Bibliography on Xu Bing and Related Issues in Contemporary Chinese Art
Zoe Li

Appendix 2. List of Important Events between 1979 and 2005
Susan Chang

List of Contributors
Index