Steven Heine and Dale S. Wright (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- February 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195175257
- eISBN:
- 9780199784608
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195175255.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Buddhism
This book is a sequel to The Zen Canon, which began to explore the variety of influential texts in the history of Zen Buddhism. In Zen Classics that exploration is continued by shifting the focus ...
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This book is a sequel to The Zen Canon, which began to explore the variety of influential texts in the history of Zen Buddhism. In Zen Classics that exploration is continued by shifting the focus from the Chinese origins of Zen to the other East Asian cultures where the Zen tradition came to fruition in subsequent eras. Scholars researching Chinese, Korean, and Japanese Zen literature have been invited to survey a single work or genre of works that, because of its power and influence, has helped shape the Zen tradition and cause it to be what it is today. The essays offer careful historical studies of texts that have earned the right to be called classics. The texts are taken from different cultures and different historical periods and fall into a variety of Zen genres.Less
This book is a sequel to The Zen Canon, which began to explore the variety of influential texts in the history of Zen Buddhism. In Zen Classics that exploration is continued by shifting the focus from the Chinese origins of Zen to the other East Asian cultures where the Zen tradition came to fruition in subsequent eras. Scholars researching Chinese, Korean, and Japanese Zen literature have been invited to survey a single work or genre of works that, because of its power and influence, has helped shape the Zen tradition and cause it to be what it is today. The essays offer careful historical studies of texts that have earned the right to be called classics. The texts are taken from different cultures and different historical periods and fall into a variety of Zen genres.
Der-wei Wang David
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520219236
- eISBN:
- 9780520924413
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520219236.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This chapter examines the scenes of crime and punishment in Chinese literary works from the late Qing period to the late 1940s. It addresses the issue of critical intellectual stances vis-à-vis the ...
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This chapter examines the scenes of crime and punishment in Chinese literary works from the late Qing period to the late 1940s. It addresses the issue of critical intellectual stances vis-à-vis the state and outlines a literary trajectory that progressed from a representation of violence to the transformation of literature into sites for violence. It argues that a major thrust in the writing of modern Chinese literature has been the compulsion to address social justice, a high-strung, contentious call for justice that turned the printed pages into veritable courtrooms of public appeal.Less
This chapter examines the scenes of crime and punishment in Chinese literary works from the late Qing period to the late 1940s. It addresses the issue of critical intellectual stances vis-à-vis the state and outlines a literary trajectory that progressed from a representation of violence to the transformation of literature into sites for violence. It argues that a major thrust in the writing of modern Chinese literature has been the compulsion to address social justice, a high-strung, contentious call for justice that turned the printed pages into veritable courtrooms of public appeal.
David Der-wei Wang
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520231405
- eISBN:
- 9780520937246
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520231405.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This chapter examines the dialectic of justice in order to understand violence and its representation in Chinese literature. It describes how a forensic discourse has arisen and evolved in modern ...
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This chapter examines the dialectic of justice in order to understand violence and its representation in Chinese literature. It describes how a forensic discourse has arisen and evolved in modern Chinese literature drawing examples drawn from four historical moments. The chapter explains that at a time when the old political, judicial, and moral order had collapsed and new orders were yet to be established, literature provided a textual space in which legal cases were presented for debate and deliberation.Less
This chapter examines the dialectic of justice in order to understand violence and its representation in Chinese literature. It describes how a forensic discourse has arisen and evolved in modern Chinese literature drawing examples drawn from four historical moments. The chapter explains that at a time when the old political, judicial, and moral order had collapsed and new orders were yet to be established, literature provided a textual space in which legal cases were presented for debate and deliberation.
Lydia H. Liu
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520211032
- eISBN:
- 9780520935303
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520211032.003.0006
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Asian Cultural Anthropology
By analyzing the female tradition in modern Chinese literature, this chapter brings to attention the number of interesting claims put forth by women critics in post-Mao China. To many of the women ...
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By analyzing the female tradition in modern Chinese literature, this chapter brings to attention the number of interesting claims put forth by women critics in post-Mao China. To many of the women critics, female literature is more or less a fait accompli, something that preexists the critical effort. Most critics of women's fiction agree that female writers tend to grapple with the problem of subjectivity in connection with gender and explore the relationship of the female subject to power, meaning, and the dominant ideology in which her gender is inscribed. The focus of this chapter is to bring the female tradition to light. It indicates that the female tradition did not come into its own until women scholars began to make significant interventions in literary criticism and historiography in the second half of the 1980s. The three women writers being discussed—Ding Ling, Zhang Jie, and Wang Anyi—figure prominently in contemporary literary criticism as architects of the female tradition.Less
By analyzing the female tradition in modern Chinese literature, this chapter brings to attention the number of interesting claims put forth by women critics in post-Mao China. To many of the women critics, female literature is more or less a fait accompli, something that preexists the critical effort. Most critics of women's fiction agree that female writers tend to grapple with the problem of subjectivity in connection with gender and explore the relationship of the female subject to power, meaning, and the dominant ideology in which her gender is inscribed. The focus of this chapter is to bring the female tradition to light. It indicates that the female tradition did not come into its own until women scholars began to make significant interventions in literary criticism and historiography in the second half of the 1980s. The three women writers being discussed—Ding Ling, Zhang Jie, and Wang Anyi—figure prominently in contemporary literary criticism as architects of the female tradition.
Paul U. Unschuld
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520257658
- eISBN:
- 9780520944701
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520257658.003.0028
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Medical Anthropology
The idea that a body as an organism has self-interest and tries to heal its own wounds and overcome difficult crises on its own is based on the model image of the self-regulating, autonomous polis. ...
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The idea that a body as an organism has self-interest and tries to heal its own wounds and overcome difficult crises on its own is based on the model image of the self-regulating, autonomous polis. The polis had transformed itself from the monarchy and the rule of the noble families into a democratic structure that was optimal for the situation of the time, a democracy in which the citizens were the sovereigns of their own fates through their meetings. The polis was a social organism and it was entirely unavoidable that its structures lent the plausibility needed for the explanatory model of the self-healing powers to find general acceptance. The fact that sickness heals on its own is also described repeatedly in the ancient Chinese literature. The ancient Chinese literature does not contain descriptions of the course of a normally fatal illness taking an unanticipated and unexpected turn for the better. China has never known trust in the self-regulating powers of the pan-societal organism.Less
The idea that a body as an organism has self-interest and tries to heal its own wounds and overcome difficult crises on its own is based on the model image of the self-regulating, autonomous polis. The polis had transformed itself from the monarchy and the rule of the noble families into a democratic structure that was optimal for the situation of the time, a democracy in which the citizens were the sovereigns of their own fates through their meetings. The polis was a social organism and it was entirely unavoidable that its structures lent the plausibility needed for the explanatory model of the self-healing powers to find general acceptance. The fact that sickness heals on its own is also described repeatedly in the ancient Chinese literature. The ancient Chinese literature does not contain descriptions of the course of a normally fatal illness taking an unanticipated and unexpected turn for the better. China has never known trust in the self-regulating powers of the pan-societal organism.
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804700757
- eISBN:
- 9780804769822
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804700757.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
Modern psychology first came into China through a context of educational reform. The work of Kubota Sadanori, Hattori Unokichi, Joseph Haven, Ruric Nevel Roark, and Harald Höffding provided the ...
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Modern psychology first came into China through a context of educational reform. The work of Kubota Sadanori, Hattori Unokichi, Joseph Haven, Ruric Nevel Roark, and Harald Höffding provided the framework for studying and understanding the mind. This chapter examines the introduction of modern psychology and Freudian psychoanalysis in China, focusing on the notions of the unconscious, sexual desire, theory of the mind, and subjectivity. It looks at the arguments of Gao Juefu (1896–1993), China's most famous psychological researcher, against the primacy of both sexual desire and the unconscious in Freud's theories. It also comments on the debate between Zhang Jingsheng (1889–1970), dubbed “Dr. Sex,” and Zhou Jianren (1888–1984) regarding sexual desire. Finally, the chapter discusses Freudian theory in relation to Chinese literature in the 1920s and 1930s and in post-Mao China.Less
Modern psychology first came into China through a context of educational reform. The work of Kubota Sadanori, Hattori Unokichi, Joseph Haven, Ruric Nevel Roark, and Harald Höffding provided the framework for studying and understanding the mind. This chapter examines the introduction of modern psychology and Freudian psychoanalysis in China, focusing on the notions of the unconscious, sexual desire, theory of the mind, and subjectivity. It looks at the arguments of Gao Juefu (1896–1993), China's most famous psychological researcher, against the primacy of both sexual desire and the unconscious in Freud's theories. It also comments on the debate between Zhang Jingsheng (1889–1970), dubbed “Dr. Sex,” and Zhou Jianren (1888–1984) regarding sexual desire. Finally, the chapter discusses Freudian theory in relation to Chinese literature in the 1920s and 1930s and in post-Mao China.
Wendy Larson
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520211032
- eISBN:
- 9780520935303
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520211032.003.0007
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Asian Cultural Anthropology
This chapter discusses the concept of men and connoisseurship in modern Chinese literature. The Chinese literary tradition is male. Chinese literary culture, evolving out of a male-only educational ...
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This chapter discusses the concept of men and connoisseurship in modern Chinese literature. The Chinese literary tradition is male. Chinese literary culture, evolving out of a male-only educational and civil service examination system is so strongly identified by men as it puts them in a position entirely different from that of women, who are still fighting to be recognized as equals. Male writers problematized their relationship to the literary tradition in a way that directly questioned its gendered elitism and the limitations it produced. One way they did this was by creating the fictional character of the connoisseur and investigating connoisseurship, particularly that which involved women. The connoisseur was almost always male, and thus connoisseurship, a broader category than obsession, is an important means through which to evaluate masculinity in modern Chinese society. The four writers being discussed in this chapter all are well-known twentieth-century male Chinese writers. They all have used the character of the connoisseur as a trope of cultural critique.Less
This chapter discusses the concept of men and connoisseurship in modern Chinese literature. The Chinese literary tradition is male. Chinese literary culture, evolving out of a male-only educational and civil service examination system is so strongly identified by men as it puts them in a position entirely different from that of women, who are still fighting to be recognized as equals. Male writers problematized their relationship to the literary tradition in a way that directly questioned its gendered elitism and the limitations it produced. One way they did this was by creating the fictional character of the connoisseur and investigating connoisseurship, particularly that which involved women. The connoisseur was almost always male, and thus connoisseurship, a broader category than obsession, is an important means through which to evaluate masculinity in modern Chinese society. The four writers being discussed in this chapter all are well-known twentieth-century male Chinese writers. They all have used the character of the connoisseur as a trope of cultural critique.
David Der-wei Wang
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520231405
- eISBN:
- 9780520937246
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520231405.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This chapter deals with the theme of beheading in twentieth-century Chinese literature, focusing on the writings on decapitation by Youhuan Yusheng, Lu Xun, and Shen Congwen. It deals with ...
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This chapter deals with the theme of beheading in twentieth-century Chinese literature, focusing on the writings on decapitation by Youhuan Yusheng, Lu Xun, and Shen Congwen. It deals with decapitation as the primal scene of the twentieth-century Chinese imagination of national, ethnic, and personal trauma, and describes the advent of Chinese literary modernity in tandem with the eruption of violence. The chapter suggests that the beheading syndrome is seen as a source of century-long debates on civility versus savagery and nationalism versus colonialism.Less
This chapter deals with the theme of beheading in twentieth-century Chinese literature, focusing on the writings on decapitation by Youhuan Yusheng, Lu Xun, and Shen Congwen. It deals with decapitation as the primal scene of the twentieth-century Chinese imagination of national, ethnic, and personal trauma, and describes the advent of Chinese literary modernity in tandem with the eruption of violence. The chapter suggests that the beheading syndrome is seen as a source of century-long debates on civility versus savagery and nationalism versus colonialism.
Paola Iovene
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780804789370
- eISBN:
- 9780804791601
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804789370.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
Relying on letters between editors and writers, memoirs, and interviews, the chapter argues that the future is a crucial site of struggle in 1980s Chinese literature. Editors cultivated modes of ...
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Relying on letters between editors and writers, memoirs, and interviews, the chapter argues that the future is a crucial site of struggle in 1980s Chinese literature. Editors cultivated modes of writing that would testify to brisk literary change. Their practices illustrate a mode of anticipation concerned with how Chinese literature ought to move forward, which was not solely an aspect of discourse but was built into institutional arrangements and enacted in a variety of collaborative endeavors. This concern affected the timing of publication and the formation of literary trends, particularly of avant-garde fiction, and significantly shaped the professional lives of writers, editors, and critics. The chapter historicizes the emergence of Chinese avant-garde fiction in the mid-1980s, showing how it emerged in response to popular genres, and demonstrates that the experience of reading foreign literature provided editors and writers with a shared horizon of literary expectation.Less
Relying on letters between editors and writers, memoirs, and interviews, the chapter argues that the future is a crucial site of struggle in 1980s Chinese literature. Editors cultivated modes of writing that would testify to brisk literary change. Their practices illustrate a mode of anticipation concerned with how Chinese literature ought to move forward, which was not solely an aspect of discourse but was built into institutional arrangements and enacted in a variety of collaborative endeavors. This concern affected the timing of publication and the formation of literary trends, particularly of avant-garde fiction, and significantly shaped the professional lives of writers, editors, and critics. The chapter historicizes the emergence of Chinese avant-garde fiction in the mid-1980s, showing how it emerged in response to popular genres, and demonstrates that the experience of reading foreign literature provided editors and writers with a shared horizon of literary expectation.
Michael Gibbs Hill
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199892884
- eISBN:
- 9780199980062
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199892884.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature, American, 19th Century Literature
How could a writer who knew no foreign languages call himself a translator? How, too, did he become a major commercial success, churning out nearly two hundred “translations” over twenty years? With ...
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How could a writer who knew no foreign languages call himself a translator? How, too, did he become a major commercial success, churning out nearly two hundred “translations” over twenty years? With rich detail and lively prose, Lin Shu, Inc., crosses the fields of literary studies, intellectual history, and print culture, offering new ways to understand the stakes of translation in China and beyond. This book shows how Lin Shu (1852–1924) rose from obscurity to become China's leading translator of Western fiction at the beginning of the twentieth century. Well before Ezra Pound's and Bertolt Brecht's “inventions” of China revolutionized poetry and theater, Lin Shu and his assistants—who did, in fact, know languages like English and French—had already given many Chinese readers their first taste of fiction from the United States, France, and England. After passing through Lin Shu's “factory of writing,” classic novels like Uncle Tom's Cabin and Oliver Twist spoke with new meaning for audiences concerned with the tumultuous social and political change facing China. Leveraging his success as a translator of foreign books, Lin Shu quickly became an authority on “traditional” Chinese culture who upheld the classical language as a cornerstone of Chinese national identity. Eventually, younger intellectuals—who had grown up reading his translations—turned on Lin Shu and tarred him as a symbol of backward conservatism. Ultimately, Lin's defeat and downfall became just as significant as his rise to fame in defining the work of the intellectual in modern China.Less
How could a writer who knew no foreign languages call himself a translator? How, too, did he become a major commercial success, churning out nearly two hundred “translations” over twenty years? With rich detail and lively prose, Lin Shu, Inc., crosses the fields of literary studies, intellectual history, and print culture, offering new ways to understand the stakes of translation in China and beyond. This book shows how Lin Shu (1852–1924) rose from obscurity to become China's leading translator of Western fiction at the beginning of the twentieth century. Well before Ezra Pound's and Bertolt Brecht's “inventions” of China revolutionized poetry and theater, Lin Shu and his assistants—who did, in fact, know languages like English and French—had already given many Chinese readers their first taste of fiction from the United States, France, and England. After passing through Lin Shu's “factory of writing,” classic novels like Uncle Tom's Cabin and Oliver Twist spoke with new meaning for audiences concerned with the tumultuous social and political change facing China. Leveraging his success as a translator of foreign books, Lin Shu quickly became an authority on “traditional” Chinese culture who upheld the classical language as a cornerstone of Chinese national identity. Eventually, younger intellectuals—who had grown up reading his translations—turned on Lin Shu and tarred him as a symbol of backward conservatism. Ultimately, Lin's defeat and downfall became just as significant as his rise to fame in defining the work of the intellectual in modern China.
Paola Iovene
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780804789370
- eISBN:
- 9780804791601
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804789370.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
Twentieth-century Chinese literature has been characterized by an obsession with the future, an obsession that is often commented on but rarely scrutinized. Most studies of Chinese literature ...
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Twentieth-century Chinese literature has been characterized by an obsession with the future, an obsession that is often commented on but rarely scrutinized. Most studies of Chinese literature conflate the category of the future with notions of progress and nation-building, and with the utopian visions propagated by the Maoist and post-Mao developmental state. The future thus understood has often been seen as a “destination” a preconceived endpoint that is propagated, at times even imposed, by a center of power. By contrast, Tales of Futures Past introduces the concept of “anticipation” as a lens through which to reexamine the textual, institutional, and experiential aspects of Chinese literary culture from the 1950s through the first decade of the twenty-first century. Anticipation names the “future in the present,” the expectations that permeate life as it unfolds and that are often mediated by literary texts. Each of the book’s five chapters details how different modes of anticipation find expression in contemporary Chinese literature, with a focus on fictional genres. Each chapter explores how emotions such as hope and fear as well as ideas on “what may come next” find concrete expression in a variety of Chinese texts and institutional contexts, ranging from science fiction to translation journals and from modernist writing to environmental literature, with the aim of tracing overlooked continuities throughout the second half of the twentieth century and the early twenty-first century, and thus refining our understanding of Chinese socialist and postsocialist literary modernity.Less
Twentieth-century Chinese literature has been characterized by an obsession with the future, an obsession that is often commented on but rarely scrutinized. Most studies of Chinese literature conflate the category of the future with notions of progress and nation-building, and with the utopian visions propagated by the Maoist and post-Mao developmental state. The future thus understood has often been seen as a “destination” a preconceived endpoint that is propagated, at times even imposed, by a center of power. By contrast, Tales of Futures Past introduces the concept of “anticipation” as a lens through which to reexamine the textual, institutional, and experiential aspects of Chinese literary culture from the 1950s through the first decade of the twenty-first century. Anticipation names the “future in the present,” the expectations that permeate life as it unfolds and that are often mediated by literary texts. Each of the book’s five chapters details how different modes of anticipation find expression in contemporary Chinese literature, with a focus on fictional genres. Each chapter explores how emotions such as hope and fear as well as ideas on “what may come next” find concrete expression in a variety of Chinese texts and institutional contexts, ranging from science fiction to translation journals and from modernist writing to environmental literature, with the aim of tracing overlooked continuities throughout the second half of the twentieth century and the early twenty-first century, and thus refining our understanding of Chinese socialist and postsocialist literary modernity.
Michel Hockx
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231160827
- eISBN:
- 9780231538534
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231160827.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
This introductory chapter begins with a description of the basic features of Internet literature in China—it is Chinese-language writing, either in established literary genres or in innovative ...
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This introductory chapter begins with a description of the basic features of Internet literature in China—it is Chinese-language writing, either in established literary genres or in innovative literary forms, written especially for publication in an interactive online context and meant to be read on-screen. The discussions then turn to the main debates in three areas of study that are directly relevant to the present volume: electronic literature, Chinese Internet studies, and postsocialism. The remainder of the chapter details the methodology used in the present study and sets out the book's main objectives: to describe the general phenomenon of Internet literature in China; to analyze examples of literary innovation taking place online; and to show how online publications push the boundaries of the state-regulated publishing system, especially the moral boundaries of what is ideologically considered to be healthy literature. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.Less
This introductory chapter begins with a description of the basic features of Internet literature in China—it is Chinese-language writing, either in established literary genres or in innovative literary forms, written especially for publication in an interactive online context and meant to be read on-screen. The discussions then turn to the main debates in three areas of study that are directly relevant to the present volume: electronic literature, Chinese Internet studies, and postsocialism. The remainder of the chapter details the methodology used in the present study and sets out the book's main objectives: to describe the general phenomenon of Internet literature in China; to analyze examples of literary innovation taking place online; and to show how online publications push the boundaries of the state-regulated publishing system, especially the moral boundaries of what is ideologically considered to be healthy literature. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.
Michel Hockx
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231160827
- eISBN:
- 9780231538534
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231160827.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
This chapter examines online poetry. The first part deals with online Chinese poetry communities as they have developed both inside and outside China. The analysis consists of descriptive accounts of ...
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This chapter examines online poetry. The first part deals with online Chinese poetry communities as they have developed both inside and outside China. The analysis consists of descriptive accounts of two separate visits to the same site, the first in 2004 and the second in 2012–2013. It also compares the practices of Chinese communities with those typically encountered on similar English-language websites, emphasizing the different social functions that online poetry writing appears to have in different literary cultures. The second part focuses on the ways in which transgressive writing pushes the boundaries of what is or is not considered respectable or legal in the PRC context. Specifically, it compares the gradual canonization of the “Lower Body” (Xiabanshen) group of avant-garde poets, known for their direct engagement with sex in poetry, with the gradual expulsion from the realm of literature of the work of the online poet Datui (“Thigh”). Finally, the chapter returns to questions of formal innovativeness in Internet literature, focusing on online experiments with visual or concrete poetry involving the use of Chinese characters, as carried out by both Chinese and non-Chinese poets. Much of the discussion is devoted to the unique early experiments from the 1990s by the sinophone poet and sound artist Dajuin Yao (Yao Dajun), whose almost classic achievements in the genre no longer survive on the live web. Also considered are poetic works by John Cayley and Jonathan Stalling, as well as Chinese translations by Shuen-shing Lee (Li Shunxing) of work by the acclaimed online poet Jim Andrews.Less
This chapter examines online poetry. The first part deals with online Chinese poetry communities as they have developed both inside and outside China. The analysis consists of descriptive accounts of two separate visits to the same site, the first in 2004 and the second in 2012–2013. It also compares the practices of Chinese communities with those typically encountered on similar English-language websites, emphasizing the different social functions that online poetry writing appears to have in different literary cultures. The second part focuses on the ways in which transgressive writing pushes the boundaries of what is or is not considered respectable or legal in the PRC context. Specifically, it compares the gradual canonization of the “Lower Body” (Xiabanshen) group of avant-garde poets, known for their direct engagement with sex in poetry, with the gradual expulsion from the realm of literature of the work of the online poet Datui (“Thigh”). Finally, the chapter returns to questions of formal innovativeness in Internet literature, focusing on online experiments with visual or concrete poetry involving the use of Chinese characters, as carried out by both Chinese and non-Chinese poets. Much of the discussion is devoted to the unique early experiments from the 1990s by the sinophone poet and sound artist Dajuin Yao (Yao Dajun), whose almost classic achievements in the genre no longer survive on the live web. Also considered are poetic works by John Cayley and Jonathan Stalling, as well as Chinese translations by Shuen-shing Lee (Li Shunxing) of work by the acclaimed online poet Jim Andrews.
Paola Iovene
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780804789370
- eISBN:
- 9780804791601
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804789370.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
The chapter offers an overview of the concepts of modern temporality in literary studies, philosophy of history, and postcolonial studies that have inspired its notion of “anticipation,” and it ...
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The chapter offers an overview of the concepts of modern temporality in literary studies, philosophy of history, and postcolonial studies that have inspired its notion of “anticipation,” and it explains its relevance to modern and contemporary Chinese literature. Anticipation encompasses the fears and aspirations that shape lives and narratives in their unfolding as well as the perception of the possibilities and limits that inform human actions and are often mediated by literary texts. The work of anticipation involves imagining a different literature as a means of envisioning a different world and is premised on intense negotiations about the “ends” of literature: ends understood as the boundaries between what is literature and what is not, as the aims it is supposed to serve, and as the limitations that might lead to its exhaustion. How these negotiations shape contemporary Chinese literature at different historical junctures is explored in the ensuing chapters.Less
The chapter offers an overview of the concepts of modern temporality in literary studies, philosophy of history, and postcolonial studies that have inspired its notion of “anticipation,” and it explains its relevance to modern and contemporary Chinese literature. Anticipation encompasses the fears and aspirations that shape lives and narratives in their unfolding as well as the perception of the possibilities and limits that inform human actions and are often mediated by literary texts. The work of anticipation involves imagining a different literature as a means of envisioning a different world and is premised on intense negotiations about the “ends” of literature: ends understood as the boundaries between what is literature and what is not, as the aims it is supposed to serve, and as the limitations that might lead to its exhaustion. How these negotiations shape contemporary Chinese literature at different historical junctures is explored in the ensuing chapters.
Michel Hockx
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231160827
- eISBN:
- 9780231538534
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231160827.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
This chapter begins with an overview of the early history of Chinese Internet literature, making use of canonizing efforts already under way in China. It then looks at the Rongshu Xia (Under the ...
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This chapter begins with an overview of the early history of Chinese Internet literature, making use of canonizing efforts already under way in China. It then looks at the Rongshu Xia (Under the Banyan Tree) website, generally acknowledged to be China's first successful literary space, before focusing on a work that helped make the site famous: the online diary of the cancer patient Lu Youqing. Drawing on different versions of the text observed at different times online, as well as snapshots from earlier versions and a copy of a later printed edition, the chapter shows how both the author himself and the people supporting him carefully tried to maintain the serious literary nature of the publication, despite the media attention it created. Lu Youqing's writing was among the earliest work demonstrating the potential of the diary or chronicle form for online literary expression.Less
This chapter begins with an overview of the early history of Chinese Internet literature, making use of canonizing efforts already under way in China. It then looks at the Rongshu Xia (Under the Banyan Tree) website, generally acknowledged to be China's first successful literary space, before focusing on a work that helped make the site famous: the online diary of the cancer patient Lu Youqing. Drawing on different versions of the text observed at different times online, as well as snapshots from earlier versions and a copy of a later printed edition, the chapter shows how both the author himself and the people supporting him carefully tried to maintain the serious literary nature of the publication, despite the media attention it created. Lu Youqing's writing was among the earliest work demonstrating the potential of the diary or chronicle form for online literary expression.
Mark R. E. Meulenbeld
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824838447
- eISBN:
- 9780824869458
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824838447.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This chapter examines the invention of the academic discipline of Chinese literature in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It challenges some of the predominant notions in the field ...
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This chapter examines the invention of the academic discipline of Chinese literature in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It challenges some of the predominant notions in the field of literary studies, arguing that it was during these decades that the traditional term xiaoshuo came to be equated with a modern, secular understanding of literary fiction in general and of the novel in particular. It considers how this usage of xiaoshuo has divorced vernacular narratives of the late Ming dynasty from the environment where they have always been most tangibly present: temples, rituals, theater acts, and the gods they embodied. It also explains how the academic shift away from the sphere of religion has resulted in a narrow understanding of these narratives exclusively as (literary) texts instead of as the cultural nexus of legend, divinity, ritual, and community. The chapter concludes by discussing the attempt by Chinese reformist intellectuals to make the novel the battleground for modernity.Less
This chapter examines the invention of the academic discipline of Chinese literature in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It challenges some of the predominant notions in the field of literary studies, arguing that it was during these decades that the traditional term xiaoshuo came to be equated with a modern, secular understanding of literary fiction in general and of the novel in particular. It considers how this usage of xiaoshuo has divorced vernacular narratives of the late Ming dynasty from the environment where they have always been most tangibly present: temples, rituals, theater acts, and the gods they embodied. It also explains how the academic shift away from the sphere of religion has resulted in a narrow understanding of these narratives exclusively as (literary) texts instead of as the cultural nexus of legend, divinity, ritual, and community. The chapter concludes by discussing the attempt by Chinese reformist intellectuals to make the novel the battleground for modernity.
Michel Hockx
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231160827
- eISBN:
- 9780231538534
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231160827.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
This chapter examines the online chronicles of three very different authors. The first is Chen Cun, whose long, meandering, never-ending online writings are clearly linked to his earlier avant-garde ...
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This chapter examines the online chronicles of three very different authors. The first is Chen Cun, whose long, meandering, never-ending online writings are clearly linked to his earlier avant-garde experiments from his pre-Internet days, when he was always striving to find ways to liberate himself from what he considered to be the stifling conventions of fiction, in favor of a more immediate manner of written expression. The second is Wen Huajian, the author of China's first microblog novel. His work is less serious than Chen Cun's but nicely thematizes the community aspect of social media while constantly blurring the lines between the contents of the novel and Wen's actual interactions on Weibo. Finally, the chapter looks at celebrity blogger Han Han. Although he does not publish literary work online, Han Han's early blog posts are important for their frontal attacks on the established publishing system. More recently, he has been engaged in several projects aimed at widening the space for independent literature publishing in China, both in print and online.Less
This chapter examines the online chronicles of three very different authors. The first is Chen Cun, whose long, meandering, never-ending online writings are clearly linked to his earlier avant-garde experiments from his pre-Internet days, when he was always striving to find ways to liberate himself from what he considered to be the stifling conventions of fiction, in favor of a more immediate manner of written expression. The second is Wen Huajian, the author of China's first microblog novel. His work is less serious than Chen Cun's but nicely thematizes the community aspect of social media while constantly blurring the lines between the contents of the novel and Wen's actual interactions on Weibo. Finally, the chapter looks at celebrity blogger Han Han. Although he does not publish literary work online, Han Han's early blog posts are important for their frontal attacks on the established publishing system. More recently, he has been engaged in several projects aimed at widening the space for independent literature publishing in China, both in print and online.
Cecile Sun
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- February 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226780207
- eISBN:
- 9780226780221
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226780221.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
For more than half a century, Chinese-Western comparative literature has been recognized as a formal academic discipline, but critics and scholars in the field have done little to develop a viable, ...
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For more than half a century, Chinese-Western comparative literature has been recognized as a formal academic discipline, but critics and scholars in the field have done little to develop a viable, common basis for comparison between these disparate literatures. This book establishes repetition as the ideal perspective from which to compare the poetry and poetics from these two traditions. The book contends that repetition is at the heart of all that defines the lyric as a unique art form and, by closely examining its use in Chinese and Western poetry, it demonstrates how one can identify important points of convergence and divergence. Through a representative sampling of poems from both traditions, the book illustrates how the irreducible generic nature of the lyric transcends linguistic and cultural barriers, but also reveals the fundamental distinctions between the traditions. Most crucially, it dissects the two radically different conceptualizations of reality–mimesis and xing–that serve as underlying principles for the poetic practices of each tradition.Less
For more than half a century, Chinese-Western comparative literature has been recognized as a formal academic discipline, but critics and scholars in the field have done little to develop a viable, common basis for comparison between these disparate literatures. This book establishes repetition as the ideal perspective from which to compare the poetry and poetics from these two traditions. The book contends that repetition is at the heart of all that defines the lyric as a unique art form and, by closely examining its use in Chinese and Western poetry, it demonstrates how one can identify important points of convergence and divergence. Through a representative sampling of poems from both traditions, the book illustrates how the irreducible generic nature of the lyric transcends linguistic and cultural barriers, but also reveals the fundamental distinctions between the traditions. Most crucially, it dissects the two radically different conceptualizations of reality–mimesis and xing–that serve as underlying principles for the poetic practices of each tradition.
Meir Shahar
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824847609
- eISBN:
- 9780824868130
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824847609.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Buddhism
This book offers the comprehensive account (in any language) of the oedipal god Nezha, doubtless one of the most intriguing figures in Chinese religion and literature. The book analyzes the ...
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This book offers the comprehensive account (in any language) of the oedipal god Nezha, doubtless one of the most intriguing figures in Chinese religion and literature. The book analyzes the patricidal god’s visceral myth, and the light it throws on the tensions that have been generated by the patriarchal Confucian family. It charts the evolution of the Nezha legend and cult over a two-thousand and five-hundred years peropd: From his origins in the Sanskrit epics and his association with the Indian child-god Kṛṣṇa; through his introduction ot China in the esoteric rituals of Tantric Buddhist masters; through the emergence of chinese fiction and drama celebrating his audacious adventures; all the way to his flourishing contemporary cult. The book uses the fascinating figure of the audacious child-god as a prime for the investigation of larger questions that concern Chinese religion and society, the psychology of the Chinese individual, and the impact of Indian civilization on Chinese culture. The book provides the most systematic analysis (in any language) of the Oedipus complex in Chinese culture. It examines the interplay of fiction, drama, and religion in the emergence of a popular Chinese god, and it surveys the role of Esoteric Buddhism in bringing Indian mythology to bear upon the Chinese imagination of divinity. Drawing upon a vast array of historical and literary sources (no less than upon ethnographic field work), the book is written backwards in time: it opens with the divine child’s present-day lore, tracing it back through Ming-period fiction and drama, Song-Period Buddhist literature, and medieval Tantric sutras to the ancient Sanskrit epics. Along the way, the the book examines the religions of fathers and sons in Chinese religion and literature, the application of the Freudian oedipal complex to China, and the long-term impact of the Indian gods on Chinese religion and literature.Less
This book offers the comprehensive account (in any language) of the oedipal god Nezha, doubtless one of the most intriguing figures in Chinese religion and literature. The book analyzes the patricidal god’s visceral myth, and the light it throws on the tensions that have been generated by the patriarchal Confucian family. It charts the evolution of the Nezha legend and cult over a two-thousand and five-hundred years peropd: From his origins in the Sanskrit epics and his association with the Indian child-god Kṛṣṇa; through his introduction ot China in the esoteric rituals of Tantric Buddhist masters; through the emergence of chinese fiction and drama celebrating his audacious adventures; all the way to his flourishing contemporary cult. The book uses the fascinating figure of the audacious child-god as a prime for the investigation of larger questions that concern Chinese religion and society, the psychology of the Chinese individual, and the impact of Indian civilization on Chinese culture. The book provides the most systematic analysis (in any language) of the Oedipus complex in Chinese culture. It examines the interplay of fiction, drama, and religion in the emergence of a popular Chinese god, and it surveys the role of Esoteric Buddhism in bringing Indian mythology to bear upon the Chinese imagination of divinity. Drawing upon a vast array of historical and literary sources (no less than upon ethnographic field work), the book is written backwards in time: it opens with the divine child’s present-day lore, tracing it back through Ming-period fiction and drama, Song-Period Buddhist literature, and medieval Tantric sutras to the ancient Sanskrit epics. Along the way, the the book examines the religions of fathers and sons in Chinese religion and literature, the application of the Freudian oedipal complex to China, and the long-term impact of the Indian gods on Chinese religion and literature.
Michel Hockx
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231160827
- eISBN:
- 9780231538534
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231160827.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
Since the 1990s, Chinese literary enthusiasts have explored new spaces for creative expression online, giving rise to a modern genre that has transformed Chinese culture and society. Ranging from the ...
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Since the 1990s, Chinese literary enthusiasts have explored new spaces for creative expression online, giving rise to a modern genre that has transformed Chinese culture and society. Ranging from the self-consciously avant-garde to the pornographic, web-based writing has introduced innovative forms, themes, and practices into Chinese literature and its aesthetic traditions. This text describes in detail the types of Chinese literature taking shape right now online and their novel aesthetic, political, and ideological challenges. Offering a unique portal into postsocialist Chinese culture, it presents a complex portrait of internet culture and control in China that avoids one-dimensional representations of oppression. The Chinese government still strictly regulates the publishing world, yet it is growing increasingly tolerant of internet literature and its publishing practices while still drawing a clear yet ever-shifting ideological bottom line.Less
Since the 1990s, Chinese literary enthusiasts have explored new spaces for creative expression online, giving rise to a modern genre that has transformed Chinese culture and society. Ranging from the self-consciously avant-garde to the pornographic, web-based writing has introduced innovative forms, themes, and practices into Chinese literature and its aesthetic traditions. This text describes in detail the types of Chinese literature taking shape right now online and their novel aesthetic, political, and ideological challenges. Offering a unique portal into postsocialist Chinese culture, it presents a complex portrait of internet culture and control in China that avoids one-dimensional representations of oppression. The Chinese government still strictly regulates the publishing world, yet it is growing increasingly tolerant of internet literature and its publishing practices while still drawing a clear yet ever-shifting ideological bottom line.
