If you are in or around New York, you’re welcome to come to this event, on October 29th at NYU.
Xinjiang and the Uyghur Question in China Today
Rebecca E. Karl <rebecca.karl@nyu.edu>
History Department
Taiwanese playwright and director Stan Lai (Lai Shengchuan), will be speaking at SOAS University of London on Saturday 13 October 2018, 3-5 pm. Free entry. All welcome.
Please see the announcement and Facebook event page below:
https://www.soas.ac.uk/taiwanstudies/events/13oct2018-in-conversation-with-playwright-and-theatre-director-stan-lai-.html
https://www.facebook.com/events/401164937085587/
Regards,
Rossella Ferrari 費萊麗
Reader in Chinese and Theatre Studies
Regional Managing Editor (China), The Theatre Times
A few recent events we have recorded at the Fairbank Center might be of interest to MCLC subscribers:
Recent Developments in Xinjiang, with Adrian Zenz
https://soundcloud.com/fairbank-center/recent-developments-in-xinjiang-with-adrian-zenz
Speaker: Adrian Zenz, Lecturer in social research methods, European School of Culture & Theology, Germany. Dr. Zenz is author of the recently published paper, ‘”Thoroughly Reforming Them Towards a Healthy Heart Attitude” – China’s Political Re-Education Campaign in Xinjiang,’ (Central Asian Survey 2018).
Moderator: Mark Elliott, Vice Provost, International Affairs, Harvard University
Co-Sponsored by:
Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies
Committee on Inner Asian and Altaic Studies
East Asian Legal Studies Program, Harvard Law School
Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Islamic Studies Program
The End of Concern: Maoist China, Activism, and Asian Studies Panel Discussion
Panelists: Continue reading
XI XI WINS 2019 NEWMAN PRIZE FOR CHINESE LITERATURE
西西荣获2019年美国纽曼华语文学奖
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Jonathan Stalling at stalling@ou.eduor 405-325-6973
NORMAN, OK—An international jury has selected the Hong Kong poet Xi Xi 西西(born 1937) as the winner of the sixth Newman Prize for Chinese Literature. She is the third female Newman laureate, and the first from Hong Kong.
Sponsored by the University of Oklahoma’s Institute for U.S.-China Issues, the Newman Prize is awarded biennially in recognition of outstanding achievement in prose or poetry that best captures the human condition, and is conferred solely on the basis of literary merit. Any living author writing in Chinese is eligible. A jury of seven distinguished literary experts nominated seven poets this spring, and selected the winner in a transparent voting process on October 9, 2018.
Winner Xi Xi 西西(the pen name of Zhang Yan 張彥) will receive USD $10,000, a commemorative plaque, and a bronze medallion at an academic symposium and award banquet at the University of Oklahoma, Norman, on March 7–8, 2019. In addition to this year’s nominating juror, Tammy Lai-Ming Ho (Hong Kong Baptist University), other nominees and jurors include Yu Xiuhua 余秀华, nominated by Nick Admussen (Cornell University); Wang Xiaoni 王小妮, nominated by Eleanor Goodman (Fairbank Center, Harvard University); Xi Chuan 西川, nominated by Lucas Klein (University of Hong Kong); Xiao Kaiyu 萧开愚, nominated by Christopher Lupke (University of Alberta); Zheng Xiaoqiong 郑小琼, nominated by Maghiel van Crevel (Leiden University); and Bei Dao 北岛, nominated by Wang Guangming (Capital Normal University). Continue reading
I would just note that the Frontiers journals — of Literary Studies, of History, etc. etc. — published in coordination with Brill, are also heavily subjected to censorship, apparently voluntarily undertaken by the editors in coordination with policies of the PRC State. Various special issues have been bowlderized by editors in order to conform to presumed censorship requirements. Brill seems to happily sponsor such pre-emptive activity.
Rebecca Karl <rebecca.karl@nyu.edu>
Hooray, Heidelberg academics, editors in new action against Springer’s bowing to Chinese censorship!
Earlier, 1,200 scholars agreed, here:
https://www.change.org/p/peer-review-boycott-of-academic-publications-that-censor-content-in-china/u/21865528
I am already on my personal boycott of Springer –I withdrew my pending contribution to an encyclopedia and will not publish in any of their outlets until they change. They should apologize to the world, for bowing down to the Chinese Communist Party censorship machine!
Magnus Fiskesjö <nf42@cornell.edu>
Heidelberg, October 2, 2018
Press Release: In Protest against Springer Nature Bowing to Censorship Demands, Editors of “Transcultural Research” Book Series Decide to Discontinue Publishing with Springer Nature
The present and former editors of the book series Transcultural Research agreed to discontinue the publication of this series with Springer Nature. Asked by their Chinese distributors to take off from their on-line package a number of articles that touched on subjects such as the Cultural Revolution or the 1989 Tiananmen protests and their suppression, Springer acceded without even informing the authors of the articles concerned. Answering a letter of protest from the editors of the Transcultural Research Series, Springer claimed it was just abiding by local laws and proudly reported that by doing so it had actually increased sales in China. Continue reading
The Georgia Institute of Technology School of Modern Languages, in collaboration with the School of Literature, Media, and Communication, is launching a groundbreaking suite of Master of Science programs in language, culture, and media skills. Advanced foreign language degrees have traditionally prepared students for careers as educators. Georgia Tech’s new MS in Global Media and Culture (MS-GMC) is the first advanced degree in foreign language and cultural studies in the United States explicitly designed for industry careers. They prepare students to work effectively in contexts ranging from non-profit, business, engineering, public policy, and medicine. Continue reading
Source: http://xichuanpoetry.com/?p=4243
The 2018 Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize shortlist has been announced, with Diana Shi and George O’Connell’s Darkening Mirror, translations of Wang Jiaxin 王家新 (Tebot Bach) on the list. Congratulations to Shi and O’Connell!
But a look at the rest of the list: There’s Sonic Peace, by Kiriu Minashita, translated by Eric E. Hyett and Spencer Thurlow (Phoneme Media), which is poetry. But Junichirō Tanizaki’s Devils in Daylight, translated by J. Keith Vincent, and The Maids, translated by Michael P. Cronin (both New Directions), and Notes of a Crocodile by Qiu Miaojin 邱妙津, as translated by Bonnie Huie (New York Review Books)? Those are works of fiction.
The Stryk Prize is–or was–a poetry translation prize. The prize’s Wikipedia page still makes that clear:
Eligible works include book-length translations into English of Asian poetry or source texts from Zen Buddhism, book-length translations from Hindi, Sanskrit, Tamil, Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean into English.
But this year, for the first time, works of prose fiction are on the shortlist.
I think this is a problem. Continue reading
Source: The Chinese University Press (9/6/18)
悼念高王凌教授 Obituary for Professor Gao Wangling
by Professor Felix Wemheuer (文浩)
The death of Professor Gao Wangling on August 24, 2018 at the age of 68 is very sad news for the field of Chinese history, but also for me personally. When I was a foreign student at Renmin University in Beijing from 2000 to 2002, I took several of his courses on the history of collectivization and peasants. Professor Gao was a well-known expert from the Research Institute for Qing History, but he also felt compelled to do research to understand the fate of Chinese peasants under Mao. His own experience as a “sent-down youth” in Shanxi during the Cultural Revolution deeply affected him so that he could not turn his back on rural China. I learnt from him that peasants in the Mao era were not naïve objects of party policies. Below the surface, they carried out “counter-actions” (反行為) such as underreporting of production, theft, organizing black markets or hiding “black land.” During the great famine (1959–1961), they lost the battle against a state that forcibly took too much grain from their villages. Professor Gao argued that peasants in the era of the People’s Commune were forced to react with “counter-actions” against state policies simply to survive. His research helped deconstruct the official myth of unity between the party and peasants. Continue reading
Source: Global Times (8/27/18)
Renowned Chinese writer He Jianming discusses power of literary reportage in China
He Jianming Photo:Li Hao/GT
During a media event at the Beijing International Book Fair on Wednesday, celebrated Chinese writer and vice chair of the China Writers Association He Jianming [何建明] noted that literary reportage provides a unique channel to record the social changes that occurred over the past four decades of China’s reform and opening up and is a great window for the world to see and get to know the real China.
A master of literary reportage, He attended the event to mark the 40th anniversary of his literature career, which overlapped with the country’s efforts to open up to the outside world. His new book, a 36-volume collection of He’s writings – which became a literature and social power that helped to push social reform in the country – was also showcased at the event. He stressed that truly good literary reportage does not fade over time despite the time sensitiveness of the genre. Continue reading
For convenience, I put all the winning authors and titles — and links to the Chinese sources — on Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lu_Xun_Literary_Prize
Helen Wang <helentao@hotmail.co.uk>
Source: China Daily (8/12/18)
Lu Xun Literature Prize names 2014-17 winners
By Mei Jia | chinadaily.com.cn
Some books in a library in Handan, Hebei province, Aug 10, 2018. [Photo/VCG]
One of the country’s top literary prizes, it was established to honor Lu Xun, the celebrated Chinese author active in early 20th century who is considered a forerunner of modern-day Chinese language and literature. His A Madman’s Diary, published in 1918, is the first novel [sic] written in the modern Chinese vernacular.
Thirty-four individuals claimed awards among seven categories: novellas, short stories, reportage, poems, essays, theoretical reviews and literary translations. Continue reading
Book on China experience
I try to find a way to have my book translated into English. There could be a chance to be sponsored economically.
I need a professional and competent publishing-house which is interested in general. If I find such a publishing house I can ask for financial support for translation.
As I don’t know which publishing house I could address, I want to ask you, if you could help me and give me two or three recommendations. If you have even contact to the one or the other it would be very fine if you could recommend me.
I thank you very much for your answer.
Ulrich Sollmann <sollmann@sollmann-online.de>
hi everyone,
i have a packed fall semester, so i’m not proposing a paper for spring AAS in denver, but i am available to serve as chair or discussant if anyone needs one.
warm wishes,
claire conceison (claireco@mit.edu)
