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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Female Bonding And Marginality In Shang Wanyun’S Novella “Xialihe” (1978), Antonio Paoliello
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, Rewriting, And Miswriting: Eileen Chang’S Late Style Against The Grain, Lina Qu
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 …
Overlapping Scriptworlds: Chinese Literature As A Global Assemblage, Wai-Chew Sim
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 Colonized Masculinity And Cultural Politics Of Seediq Bale, Chin-Ju Lin
The Colonized Masculinity And Cultural Politics Of Seediq Bale, Chin-Ju Lin
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In her article, “The Colonized Masculinity and Cultural Politics of Seediq Bale,” Chin-ju Lin discusses a Taiwanese blockbuster movie, a postcolonial historiography and a form of life-writing, which delineates the last Indigenous insurrection against Japanese colonialism. This article explores the cultural representations in Seediq Bale. Fighting back as a colonized man for pride and dignity is portrayed as means to restore their masculine identity. The headhunting tradition is remembered, romanticized, praised highly as heroic and even strengthened in an inaccurate way to promote individualistic masculinity and to forge a new national identity in postcolonial Taiwan. Nevertheless, the stereotypical …
Positions Of Sinophone Representation In Jin's (金庸) Chivalric Topography, Weijie Song
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 …
Laughter And The Cosmopolitan Aesthetic In Lao She's 二马 (Mr. Ma And Son), Jeffrey Mather
Laughter And The Cosmopolitan Aesthetic In Lao She's 二马 (Mr. Ma And Son), Jeffrey Mather
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In his article "Laughter and the Cosmopolitan Aesthetic in Lao She's 二马 (Mr. Ma and Son)" Jeffrey Mather discusses Lao She's (pseudonym for Qingchun Shu 1899-1966) texts and their naturalist portrayals of social life in China during a tumultuous period. Lao She's most celebrated works include the 1937 novel 骆驼祥子 (Rickshaw Boy) and the 1958 play 茶馆 (Teahouse), both of which were made into films in China. Rickshaw Boy was translated into English in 1945 and became an international bestseller, making Lao She one of the first modern Chinese writers known in the West. …