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Westernization Or Localization? The (Mis)Reading Of “The Tragic” In Modern Chinese Literary Discourse, Tian Gu

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

This paper examines the features and causal factors in constructing an idea of the tragic in modern Chinese literary discourse. It attempts at revisiting and reproducing the realities of misreading and variation upon modern Chinese introduction of the term “tragedy” (beiju) at different socio-historical periods, and has observed the interplay between two trends, namely, Westernization and localization, through the negotiation of “the tragic” into modern Chinese literary practice. These two trends have been integrated by a political and pragmatic perspective, which dominates the formation of a modern Chinese literary discourse on “the tragic”. This perspective offers both possibility …

Children’S Gothic In The Chinese Context: The Untranslatability And Cross-Cultural Readability Of A Literary Genre, Chengcheng You

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

As an emerging literary subgenre in the twenty-first century, Children’s Gothic challenges and blends the norms of both children’s literature and Gothic literature, featuring child characters’ self-empowerment in the face of fears and dark impulses. The foreignness and strangeness that pertain to the genre haunt the border of its translatability. Daniel Handler’s A Series of Unfortunate Events (1999­–2006), written under the pseudonym Lemony Snicket, poses a chain of translational challenges due to its linguistic creativity, paratextual art, and mixed style of horror and dark humor intended for a child readership. To investigate the interplay between Children’s Gothic and its (un)translatability …

Ecopoetry As Method: Reading Gary Snyder As A Cultural Mediator Between China And The World, Winnie L M Yee

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Ecocriticism is a field that is inherently cross-cultural, and poetry is an art form that creates bonds across cultural communities. This paper focuses on Gary Snyder, a prominent poet in his own right, who is famous for his translation of the works by Chinese poet Han Shan. His attraction to Chinese classical poetry and Eastern civilization offers an alternative to the Western developmental paradigm, and the ecopoetry he espouses is pertinent to today’s environmental debates. His references to nature do not function merely as reminders that nature should be respected but as an impetus to reflect on the coexistence of …

Female Bonding And Marginality In Shang Wanyun’S Novella “Xialihe” (1978), Antonio Paoliello

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

This article explores the representation of homosociality between two marginalized female characters in “Xialihe” (夏麗赫) (1978), a novella by Sinophone Malaysian writer Shang Wanyun (商晚) (1952-1995). Although some scholars have suggested that the writer’s preoccupation with the intimate world of women started only in the 1980s, I argue that “Xialihe” already highlights issues such as female intimacy and women’s social marginalization. The text represents, therefore, a link between her earlier nativist production and her later more feminist approach. Additionally, I contend that, writing from a marginal position at the periphery of Malaysia’s national literary system and from a doubly-conservative environment …

Writing Gender In Early Modern Chinese Women's Tanci Fiction, Li Guo

Purdue University Press Book Previews

Women’s tanci, or “plucking rhymes,” are chantefable narratives written by upper-class educated women from seventeenth-century to early twentieth-century China. Writing Gender in Early Modern Chinese Women's Tanci Fiction offers a timely study on early modern Chinese women’s representations of gender, nation, and political activism in their tanci works before and after the Taiping Rebellion (1850 to 1864), as well as their depictions of warfare and social unrest.

Women tanci authors’ redefinition of female exemplarity within the Confucian orthodox discourses of virtue, talent, chastity, and political integrity could be bourgeoning expressions of female exceptionalism and could have foreshadowed protofeminist ideals …

Review Of The Journey To The West, Vol. 1, Translated And Edited By Anthony C. Yu, Radovan Škultéty

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

This is a critical review of volume 1 of the 2012 revised translation of the classical Chinese vernacular novel Xiyou ji (The Journey to the West) by the late Dr. Anthony Yu (1938 - 2015), former Professor Emeritus in Humanities and in the Divinity School at The University of Chicago. It represents the first of four volumes of a thorough overhaul of the first edition, published originally from 1977 to 1983; this complete edition in 4 volumes and almost 1,900 pages (including extensive introduction, endnotes and index) appeared simultaneously on December 17, 2012. It is a result of …

Problems With Perceptual And Cognitive Idiosyncrasies In Li Wenjun’S Translation Of The Benjy Section Of Faulkner's The Sound And The Fury, Aaron L. Moore

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article “Problems with Perceptual and Cognitive Idiosyncrasies in Li Wenjun’s Translation of the Benjy Section of Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury,” Aaron Lee Moore conducts a close explication of a 2014 English-Chinese edition of part of The Sound and the Fury. Li Wenjun’s translation of the Benjy section of The Sound and the Fury is certainly admirable in its graceful rendering of Faulkner’s complex, idiosyncratic prose style into accessible Chinese—and particularly laudable in its meticulous tracking of the a-chronological sequence of Benjy’s stream of consciousness narrative. However, problems arise in the translation due to an …

The Forest, The Trees, The Bark, The Pith: An Intensive Look At The Circulation Rates Of Primary Texts In Ten Major Literature Areas At The University Of Oregon Libraries, Jeff D. Staiger

Charleston Library Conference

This poster looks at the circulation rate for literary primary texts, which constitute a unique area of collecting in academic libraries: while they do not in most cases meet immediate research needs, it is assumed that libraries ought to acquire them, for reasons including future research needs, preservation of the cultural record, and the ability of members of the intellectual community to stay current, those these remain primarily tacit. The circulation trends of contemporary literary works in ten areas of literature (English, American, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Latin American, Chinese, Japanese, and Russian) over the past twenty years at the …

Writing, Rewriting, And Miswriting: Eileen Chang’S Late Style Against The Grain, Lina Qu

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article “Writing, Rewriting, and Miswriting: Eileen Chang’s Late Style Against the Grain,” Lina Qu reconstructs Eileen Chang as a Saidian late figure and formulates the poetics and politics of lateness immanent in her late self-writing. Drawing from Said’s theorization, Qu argues that Chang’s late style emerges and matures in rewriting her memories into numerous autobiographical accounts. The exposé of her dysfunctional family and turbulent life metonymically constitutes a counter narrative that disenchants Chinese modernity. In contrast to the dominant modalities of evolution and revolution, her involutionary discourse embodies a Deleuzian paradigm of artistic creativity and historical development. Qu …

Farmer, Priest, And Poet: Knowledge Transmission And Wisdom In Works And Days And Gelimu, Duoduo Xu

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

This paper aims at a comparison between a classic poem from ancient Greek literature, the Works and Days by Hesiod, and ancestral records of hemerology from Daba Culture, entitled Gelimu, collected during my fieldwork in South-West China. Both traditions use constellations to mark important dates throughout the year, providing similar instructions on how to deal with daily work in the fields. Moreover, their mnemonic strategies and formulaic verses reflect their origins from oral traditions passed down from generation to generation. Starting from these basic similarities, the author analyzed the roles of Daba priests, the calendars authors, and Hesiod, the …

Overlapping Scriptworlds: Chinese Literature As A Global Assemblage, Wai-Chew Sim

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article “Overlappinig Scriptworlds: Chinese Literature as a Global Assemblage,” Wai-Chew Sim offers a globalist vision or understanding of Chinese literary studies/Sinophone studies. Deploying the notion of scriptworld (Damrosch), he examines how the Chinese, English, and Malay-language scriptworlds interact in the Southeast Asian context. He traces the rhizomatic connections between Joo Ming Chia’s Exile or Pursuit, a Singapore Sinophone text that explores multiple belongings, and two novels: M. L. Mohamed’s Confrontation (originally published as Batas Langit), and T.H. Kwee’s The Rose of Cikembang (originally published as Bunga Roos dari Cikembang). Tracing the sinophonicity of the latter …

The Disenchantment Of History And The Tragic Consciousness Of Chinese Postmodernity, Alberto Castelli

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Magic Realism brings fantastic events into the frame of the narration. Yet it cannot quite be defined. At the very start of the process of definition, there is a question: Magic Realism is a mode of narration, or rather a post-colonial movement rising sociological issues alternative to the logic of power? The paper parallels and juxtaposes Latin American Magic Realism and the literary experience of Chinese literary Avant-garde in the 80s, similar apocalyptic thematic, but different narrative structures. Relating to the fictional universe of Can Xue and Yu Hua, the aim is to illuminate an exclusive mode to narrate history: …

Revisiting 'Seventeen–Year Literature' (1949-1966) In China From A Neocolonial Perspective, Tian Zhang

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Revisiting Seventeen–Year Literature' (1949-1966) in China from a Neo­colonial Perspective" Tian Zhang surveys the "Seventeen-Year Literature" (1949-1966) from a neocolo­nial perspective. It reviews the internal and external factors of anxiety faced by Chinese during the period of seventeen years since the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949. The sev­enteen years witnessed a stress on and flourishing of the proletarian socialist literature of the people, by the people and for the people. The seventeen-year literature, on its way to smashing the old system, represents the trend of Chinese literature of the time and the extension …

From The "Other" To The "Master Narrative": The Chinese Journey Of The Frankfurt School, Guohua Zhu, Xiangchun Meng

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In their article, "From the 'Other' to the 'Master Narrative': The Chinese Journey of the Frankfurt School," Guohua Zhu and Xiangchun Meng discuss the Chinese reception of Frankfurt School and the Maoist historical context. Chinese scholars take the narrow view of the Frankfurt School theories as a depoliticized instrument to explain Chinese practice, particularly in the realm of mass culture. Furthermore, the Frankfurt School has encountered the powerful political and ideological legacy of Maoism, which not only dictates instrumentalist view, but also predisposes to a nationalistic attitude that pits Chinese exceptionalism against universalism, including the Frankfurt School and other western …

The “Althusser-Mao” Problematic And The Reconstruction Of Historical Materialism: Maoism, China And Althusser On Ideology, Fang Yan

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article “The ‘Althusser-Mao’ Problematic and the Reconstruction of Historical Materialism: Maoism, China and Althusser on Ideology,” Fang Yan analyses the “Althusser-Mao” problematic which was first brought up by Liu Kang, outlining how Mao’s ideas contributed to the formation of Althusser’s theory of ideology. The paper is divided into three parts: first, how Mao influenced Althusser’s propositions of the primacy of relations of production and reciprocal action of the superstructure; secondly, how Mao influenced Althusser’s notions of ideological practice, Ideological State Apparatuses and ideological class struggle; and finally, how Althusser drew on Mao in the formation of the concept …

Traveling Theory: Fredric Jameson’S Interpretations Of The Cultural Revolution And Maoism, Xian Wang

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article, "Traveling Theory: Fredric Jameson’s Interpretations of the Cultural Revolution and Maoism," Xian Wang discusses how Fredric Jameson transformed or “transcoded” the Chinese Cultural Revolution into his notion of cultural revolution, regarding it as a radical means to achieve decolonization and national liberation. The Chinese Cultural Revolution therefore became a model for cultural revolution in different parts of the world, and an alternative vision of modernity. Jameson also associates Maoism and the Cultural Revolution with Antonio Gramsci’s concept of subalternity, and considers cultural revolution as an ideological revolution for the oppressed classes. Taking Maoism as a traveling theory, …

Maoist Aesthetics In Western Left-Wing Thought, Jun Zeng, Siying Duan

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In their article “Maoist Aesthetics in Western Left-wing Thought,” Jun Zeng and Siying Duan discuss a terrain of knowledge called “Maoist aesthetics,” which is the creative misreading of Mao’s “On Contradiction,” the theory and practice of “Cultural Revolution” and other revolutionary literature and arts of Mao’s time by Western Left intellectuals. Scholars and academic communities inspired by Maoism include Bertolt Brecht, Herbert Marcuse, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Louis Pierre Althusser, the Chinese period of Tel Quel, Fredric Jameson, Arif Dirlik, and Contemporary Radical Left intellectuals such as Alain Badiou and Slavoj Zizek. Comparative study of the mutual influence of …

Introduction: Rethinking Critical Theory And Maoism, Kang Liu

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article, "Rethinking Critical Theory and Maoism," Kang Liu reviews the existing literature in English on the relationship of Critical Theory and Maoism and discusses the need to explore and reconstruct a genealogy of Critical Theory and Maoism within the global context of political, ideological, and intellectual currents and trends. The special issue will focus on three clusters of issues: first, the western invention of Maoism as a universal theory of revolution; second, the reception of Critical Theory in China and its relationship to Maoism; and third, the relevance of Maoism and Critical Theory today. Liu raises the question …

China And The Politics Of Cross–Cultural Representation In Interwar European Fiction, Carles Prado-Fonts

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "China and the Politics of Cross–Cultural Representation in Interwar European Fiction" Carles Prado-Fonts analyzes Joan Crespi's La ciutat de la por (The City of Fear, 1930) to illustrate the varied representations of China in interwar Europe. In the 1920s and 1930s, a plurality of views on China and the Chinese people became widespread across different parts of Europe, mainly shaped by English, French, and German representations. Contradictory images of China coexisted in literature, thought, and popular culture. Crespi's work exemplifies these contradictions: China appears as both an attainable reality and an unreachable fantasy, two tropes that prevailed …

Teaching Languages Online: Innovations And Challenges, Mayu Miyamoto, Natsumi Suzuki, Atsushi Fukada, Yuhan Huang, Siyan Hou, Wei Hong

Purdue Linguistics, Literature, and Second Language Studies Conference

Language professionals long resisted teaching online mainly because it was unthinkable to teach speaking in the online environment. Recent advances in technology, however, have made it conceivable. This chapter presents the design and implementation of online courses in Japanese and Chinese recently developed and being offered at Purdue University. We will highlight not only technologies involved, but also pedagogical innovations that helped resolve difficult issues. The efficacy of online teaching will also be touched upon. Reactions from enrolled students and the instructors that have taught the courses will also be shared.

The Evaluation Of Implicit And Explicit Instruction In Chinese Refusals: A Case Of A Japanese Learner, Bo Zhan

Purdue Linguistics, Literature, and Second Language Studies Conference

No abstract provided.

Why Are Some Aggressive Adolescents Popular: Subgroups Of Chinese Aggressive Youth, Li Niu

Open Access Theses

This study examined the heterogeneity of Chinese aggressive adolescents to assess why some aggressive youths are popular and others are not. The sample included 1548 adolescents from eighth and eleventh grade in China and data were obtained from self-reports, teacher reports, and peer assessments. Results from a subgroup analysis in which aggressive youths were classified into high, average, and low popularity subgroups and a k-means cluster analysis indicated that there were two heterogeneous subgroups of aggressive youths who exhibited distinct behavioral profiles. Popular aggressive youths differed from less popular aggressive youths in their higher levels of aggression, prosocial behavior, …

E-Commerce Mental Models Of Upper Middle Class Chinese Female Consumers In Beijing, Yunfan Song

Open Access Theses

The purpose of this study was to understand and explore the mental models of Chinese consumers towards e-commerce. A mental model is a representation formed by consumers based on their experience and observation, which finally influence their task performances. Due to the different experiences and contexts, the mental models of Chinese consumers could be various. This study investigated one of the subgroups in depth, which is the upper middle class female in Beijing, China.

To achieve the purpose of the study, a qualitative research was conducted in China, and participants were interviewed about their perceptions of, and experiences with, online …

Ethical Transformations In Yan's 陆犯焉识 (The Criminal Lu Yanshi), Weihong Zhu

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Ethical Transformations in Yan's陆犯焉识 (The Criminal Lu Yanshi)" Weihong Zhu uses ethical literary criticism to explain the reason for the change in attitude which the novel's hero undergoes. Zhu argues that in Geling Yan's novel the turning point lies in the protagonist's realization of his inner "animal" factor. Subjected to severe tests by the extreme circumstances in a northwest prison in China, this realization helps him transform from a proud man to a humble human being, so that he learns to love his family. Although set in a grand historical background of important political events, Yan's …

Han's (韓邦慶) Novel 海上花列傳 (The Sing-Song Girls Of Shanghai) And Urbanity In Late Qing Shanghai, Xiaojue Wang

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Han's (韓邦慶) Novel海上花列傳 (The Sing-Song Girls of Shanghai) and Urbanity in Late Qing Shanghai" Xiaojue Wang discusses the relationship between the urban milieu in the foreign concessions of Shanghai and the late Qing courtesan culture through a critical reading of Bangqing Han's (韓邦慶1856-1894) novel The Sing-Song Girls of Shanghai. Wang argues that Han's novel is a significant departure from traditional vernacular fiction in three aspects: 1) its illustration of the connection between courtesan culture and the rising modern city, 2) its portrayal of emergent female subjectivity and female space in the late Qing, …

Chinese Literature's Route To World Literature, Hongtao Liu

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Chinese Literature's Route to World Literature" Hongtao Liu argues that Goethe's theory of world literature based on the conflicting and unifying values of cosmopolitanism and localism has fueled Chinese literature's desire to join world literatures. Proposed by Zhenduo Zheng with the notion of the "unification of literature" at the beginning of the twentieth century and developed in the 1980s, the "global elements of twentieth-century Chinese literature" in the twenty-first century, this notion remains a feature of Chinese literature's global trajectory. Liu argues that although the experience of a number of transitions, China's pursuit remains relevant and translation …

Positions Of Sinophone Representation In Jin's (金庸) Chivalric Topography, Weijie Song

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Positions of Sinophone Representation in Jin's (金庸) Chivalric Topography" Weijie Song examines Yong Jin's post-1949 Hong Kong chivalric imagination of imperial Beijing and beyond during the Ming-Qing Dynastic transition and the dialects of inclusive exclusion and exclusive inclusion. In Cold War Hong Kong, Jin charted a wide range of chivalric activities: intruding into the political center embodied by the Forbidden City (the "Great Within") and fleeing to peripheral regions such as Xinjiang's Islamic community, the overseas kingdom in Brunei in Southeast Asia, and an unknown place somewhere inside Yangzhou. Song argues that Jin's literary topography suggests a …

Ecocriticism And National Image In 舌尖上的中国 (A Bite Of China), Mingwen Xiao

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Ecocriticism and National Image in 舌尖上的中国 (A Bite of China)" Mingwen Xiao examines the multi-faceted contents of the popular 2012 television series. Instead of exhibiting delicacies made by professional chefs in luxury restaurants, A Bite of China displays local food and dishes made by ordinary people. By focus on every-day food preparation, the show constructs a performance where class, ethnicity, gender, age, and other social markers are blurred and the geographically and ethnically diverse ways of food preparation and consumption appear as a cohesive Chinese culinary identity. Xiao argues that A Bite of China plays a role …

New Woman In Early Twentieth-Century Chinese Fiction, Jin Feng

Comparative Cultural Studies

In The New Woman in Early Twentieth-Century Chinese Fiction, Jin Feng proposes that representation of the "new woman" in Communist Chinese fiction of the earlier twentieth century was paradoxically one of the ways in which male writers of the era explored, negotiated, and laid claim to their own emerging identity as "modern" intellectuals. Specifically, Feng argues that male writers such as Lu Xun, Yu Dafu, Ba Jin, and Mao Dun created fictional women as mirror images of their own political inadequacy, but that at the same time this was also an egocentric ploy to affirm and highlight the modernity …