Month: January 2021

MLA 2022 panel submissions

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Dear colleagues,

As the incoming chair of the MLA’s forum on modern and contemporary Chinese literature, I’d like to invite you to consider submitting a proposal for the 2022 MLA conference in Washington, D.C. Calls for papers can be submitted now and will be accepted through February 28: submitting a call through MLA brings your session to the attention of potential participants (as described here). CFP are optional: complete special session proposals (described here) are due on April 1. The conference is committed to participant access and was completely virtual this year; I suspect that the risk of coronavirus will make next year’s conference hybrid physical/virtual. I will also point out that the MLA is one of the few conferences which allows for non-English presentations; I am available to revise proposal translations (which must be in English) for MCLC members and people in the field, just contact me off-list.

The forum leadership under outgoing chair Lee Haiyan has made some exciting plans for next year’s program. We would love to see you in D.C. (or online) in January.

Thanks,

Nick Admussen
Cornell University Continue reading →

Save Cantonese at Stanford petition

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A petition is being circulated by Stanford students and alumni regarding the Cantonese language program at the Stanford Language Center. I’m forwarding it along as a Stanford alum and Cantonese speaker, but the petition itself is an interesting read for scholars. You can read the arguments for Cantonese and sign the petition at: https://tinyurl.com/save-cantonese-at-stanford

Latest coverage by the Stanford Daily: https://www.stanforddaily.com/2021/01/11/thousands-petition-stanford-to-save-cantonese-program-renew-sole-lecturers-contract/

Christopher K. Tong
http://christopherktong.wordpress.com

Yeng Pway Ngon dies aged 73

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Source: The Straits Times (1/12/21)
Acclaimed Chinese-language writer Yeng Pway Ngon dies aged 73
By Olivia Ho

Yeng Pway Ngon's work spanned genres, ranging across poetry, essays, plays and more.

Yeng Pway Ngon’s work spanned genres, ranging across poetry, essays, plays and more. PHOTO: ST FILE

SINGAPORE – Yeng Pway Ngon, one of Singapore’s most eminent Chinese-language writers, died on Sunday (Jan 10) after a long battle with cancer.

The Cultural Medallion recipient and three-time Singapore Literature Prize winner was 16 days shy of his 74th birthday.

He wrote more than 20 works, including acclaimed novels such as Unrest (2002), Trivialities About Me And Myself (2006) and Art Studio (2011).

The latter two were selected by the journal Asia Weekly for its prestigious annual list of the 10 Best Chinese Novels in the World, alongside works by Nobel laureate Mo Yan and Yan Geling. Continue reading →

Surviving a Uighur ‘re-education’ camp

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Source: The Guardian (1/12/21)
‘Our souls are dead’: how I survived a Chinese ‘re-education’ camp for Uighurs
After 10 years living in France, I returned to China to sign some papers and I was locked up. For the next two years, I was systematically dehumanised, humiliated and brainwashed
By  with 

Gulbahar Haitiwaji, a Uighur woman who spent two years in a re-education camp in western China.

Gulbahar Haitiwaji. Photograph: Emmanuelle Marchadour

The man on the phone said he worked for the oil company, “In accounting, actually”. His voice was unfamiliar to me. At first, I couldn’t make sense of what he was calling about. It was November 2016, and I had been on unpaid leave from the company since I left China and moved to France 10 years earlier. There was static on the line; I had a hard time hearing him.

“You must come back to Karamay to sign documents concerning your forthcoming retirement, Madame Haitiwaji,” he said. Karamay was the city in the western Chinese province of Xinjiang where I’d worked for the oil company for more than 20 years.

“In that case, I’d like to grant power of attorney,” I said. “A friend of mine in Karamay takes care of my administrative affairs. Why should I come back for some paperwork? Why go all that way for such a trifle? Why now?” Continue reading →

Shades of Green: Notes on China’s Eco-civilisation

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The University of Sydney China Studies Centre is pleased to announce Shades of Green: Notes on China’s Eco-civilisation (edited by Olivier Krischer and Luigi Tomba, 2020), published with Made in China journal as the first in a new series of ‘Made in China Notebooks’.

Shades of Green: Notes on China’s Eco-civilisation
Edited by Olivier Krischer and Luigi Tomba

Is China the new champion of environmentalism? Are democratic models becoming obsolete? Is efficiency all we need to tackle this environmental crisis? Believing such questions to be flattening the debate and obscuring as much as they reveal, Shades of Green offers short reflections from the perspectives of 14 young scholars addressing the problem in compelling and original ways. They are exploring issues of language and policy interpretation, the complex nexus of social and environmental justice, case studies in rural revitalisation, precarious urban housing and hygiene impacts of city development, as well as the potential to address spiritual or indigenous questions to ecological challenges in the context of China today.

The PDF book is available on China Studies Centre website.

YANPING ZHANG | Events and Communications Officer
China Studies Centre

Utopian Ruins review

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Source: http://www.biblioteca.montepulciano.si.it/node/1155 (1/12/21)

Jie Li, Utopian Ruins, a Memorial Museum of the Mao Era. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2020
Reviewed by Silvia Calamandrei

Utopian Ruins but also Ruins of an Utopia are the subject of Jie Li’s work, enquiring how to build  a memorial of the Maoist era, an archive-museum assembling together different pieces and traces of the past: on paper, in films and photographical work , as objects of articraft, as architectural environmental and landscape  signs, so to help new generations to fight against imposed amnesia and old generations to awaken  and remember: in fact historical narrative is  the fruit of intergenerational imbrication and stratification of memories, open to new readings.

A result of the “cultural studies” approach, this study of materials and signs evoking Maoist China memories is a useful tool in the debate on history and research into archives: the open question is how to narrate a controversial past as the Cultural Revolution period,  not flattening it to the reasons of the winners or the losers and reflecting all the contradictory aspects and complexity of past experiences. Continue reading →

Taiwan’s new passport

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Source: NYT (1/11/21)
On Taiwan’s New Passport, the Incredible Shrinking ‘Republic of China’
Officials said the redesign was an attempt to disassociate Taiwanese citizens from those on the mainland, who faced travel restrictions amid the pandemic.
By Livia Albeck-Ripka

Foreign Minister Joseph Wu showing the new Taiwan passport design in Taipei on Monday. Credit…Ann Wang/Reuters

Taiwan on Monday released a new passport that puts a diplomatic spin on the concept of social distancing amid the pandemic.

The self-governing island’s official name, Republic of China, has been downsized, though it remains on the cover in Chinese characters. The words “Taiwan Passport” appear in large bold type. The government said early in the pandemic that it was all an attempt to lessen confusion surrounding its citizens traveling during the coronavirus outbreak, and to disassociate them from people coming from mainland China.

“Today is the day,” Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, said in an Instagram post on Monday evening. “The big TAIWAN on the cover will accompany the people of the country to travel around the world, and it will also make the international community more unable to ignore the existence of Taiwan,” she wrote. (She also boasted that in the past year, Taiwan had successfully slowed the spread of the virus while maintaining economic growth.) Continue reading →

Wai-yee Li lecture

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2020/21 Yip So Man Wat Memorial Lecture
Elegance and Vulgarity: The Promise and Peril of Things in Ming-Qing Literature 雅俗分際: 明清文學的物情與物累, with Professor Wai-yee Li (Harvard University)
Wednesday January 20, 2021; 4:00 PM – 6:30 PM (Pacific Time)
Online via Zoom

Graphic by Anh Luu. Image credits: “The Landscape of Suzhou” by Shen Zhou (Ming Dynasty) 明沈周蘇州山水全圖 卷 “Landscape in Snow” by Shen Zhou 明沈周雪景山水

How is value assigned to things? What is the line between the refinement of good taste and the force of obsession? Is elegance compromised by self-consciousness? How can an object of appreciation be both commodity and anti-commodity (inasmuch as true appreciation and the greatest worth are not measurable in economic terms)? Are elegance or vulgarity determined by affirming social consensus or challenging it? How do the fellowship and competition among connoisseurs drive the definition of elegance? Why are “elegant things” associated with nature and reclusion but also embedded in social relations among the rich and the powerful? Can good taste become bad taste, and vice versa? Professor Wai-yee Li will discuss the figure of the vulgar connoisseur in Jin Ping Mei, the contradictions of elegance in a story by Li Yu (1611-1680), and the implications of redefining elegance and vulgarity in The Story of the Stone.

Free & open to the public. Registration required.

Research Seminar: Objectifying People and Humanizing Things in Chinese Literature 物我之間：明清文學的「人化」與「物化」母題 Continue reading →

UC Riverside lecturer position

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Department of Comparative Literature and Languages
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, RIVERSIDE
2020-2021 Academic Year
Position: Lecturer in Chinese Literature, Culture, and/or Cinema
Starting Date: The first day of Spring quarter is March 24, 2021; the last day of Spring quarter is June 11, 2021.

Salary:

Approximately $7047.00, based on 100% annual salary of $56,381 (pending final budget approval). Appointment is eligible for renewal depending on need, funding and performance.

Qualifications:

Minimum requirements are an M.A. or higher in Chinese literature, culture and/or cinema. Applicants holding a Ph.D., or who are ABD are also encouraged to apply. Priority will be given to candidates with experience and success in teaching Chinese literature, culture, and/or cinema at an American university.

UCR is a world-class research university with an exceptionally diverse undergraduate student body. Its mission is explicitly linked to providing routes to educational success for underrepresented and first-generation college students. A commitment to this mission is a preferred qualification. Continue reading →

Mass arrest of former HK opposition lawmakers

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Source: SCMP (1/6/21)
Mass arrests of former Hong Kong opposition lawmakers, activists for alleged national security law violations
Occupy Central co-founder Benny Tai detained along with former legislators James To, Lam Cheuk-ting, Andrew Wan, Alvin Yeung and Wu Chi-wai. The pan-democratic camp held primary contests last July in five constituencies to determine who would run in the Legislative Council election in September
By Danny Lee

Democratic Party members (from left) Ted Hui Chi-fung, Helena Wong Pik-wan, Lam Cheuk-ting, Wu Chi-wai, James To Kun-sun, Andrew Wan Siu-kin and Kwong Chun-yu in August 2020. Photo: May Tse

Democratic Party members (from left) Ted Hui Chi-fung, Helena Wong Pik-wan, Lam Cheuk-ting, Wu Chi-wai, James To Kun-sun, Andrew Wan Siu-kin and Kwong Chun-yu in August 2020. Photo: May Tse

Around 50 former opposition lawmakers and activists were arrested on Wednesday morning on subversion charges over a primary election run-off, marking the biggest crackdown under the national security law since it took effect on June 30 last year.

Most of those detained either organised or took part in primary contests held by the pan-democratic camp last July as part of a “35-plus” strategy to maximise the camp’s chances of taking control of the 70-member legislature. Continue reading →

Independent Film Criticism in China zoom event

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CIFA Website Launch Event Series: Independent Film Criticism in China
A Conversation with Bao Hongwei, Wang Xiaolu, Wu Wenguang, and Zhu Rikun, followed by an open Q&A
Moderator: Luke Robinson
16 January 2021
08:00 New York; 13:00 London; 21:00 Beijing

Please register for the event here:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/cifa-website-launch-event-series-independent-film-criticism-in-china-tickets-135286129455

Attend the meeting via the Zoom link: https://newcastleuniversity.zoom.us/j/82174413821
Zoom meeting ID: 821 7441 3821 Continue reading →

China’s costly drive to erase extreme poverty (2)

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In response to Lily Lee’s query, my impression is that the NYT as well as much of the rest of the media and political establishment in the US has been awakened to what the CCP is about. Just a few years ago a NYT editorial could go along with the CCP’s racist labelling of the entire Uyghur people as ‘terrorists’. Now, they would not do that, in particular as their own reporters have been filing long series of blow by blow reports, thus filling in not just the public, but their own editors, too, on the enormity of the mass atrocities perpetrated by the CCP over the last several years since 2017; on the trampling of the freedom of speech (on Corona, etc,), and so on. But the NYT will still try to produce “objective” reports, and these efforts can sometimes seem awkward.

Also, in the US as elsewhere, there are large pockets of committed China lobbyists and “friends”, not least the Walmarts and such businesses (Apple and some others are said to have lobbied strenuously against forced labor legislation, just recently), and the Kissinger style “China experts” who right now must be struggling behind the scenes, to try to influence the incoming new administration. Continue reading →

MLA 2021 modern China panels

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Happy New Year!

For the MLA members among us, the first or second week after the new year is usually taken up with traveling to someplace very cold to attend the annual MLA convention. This year, as with many things, the conference has gone virtual. The program, however, is not any less exciting and wide-ranging. There are dozens of panels and papers on Chinese literature–you can find them easily with a keyword search through the online program.

Below I highlight the sessions sponsored by the Executive Committee of the Modern and Contemporary Chinese Literature LLC (PST times are used here)

See you on Zoom!

Haiyan Lee
Chair, Modern and Contemporary Chinese Literature LLC Executive Committee

Feminist comedian accused of ‘inciting gender-based antagonism’

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Source: SupChina (12/29/21)
Feminist comedian accused of ‘inciting gender-based antagonism’ after critiquing sexist haters
When reflecting on her past year, Yang Li, the stand-up comedian known for her feminist men-bashing, delivered a barn-burner of a tirade against her critics, blasting them for being misogynist and overly sensitive to critique.
By Jiayun Feng

yang li

Yáng Lì 杨笠 knows haters gonna hate, and she has gleefully given them more fuel for the fire.

When she first appeared on the third season of hit stand-up comedy series Rock & Roast (脱口秀大会 tuō kǒu xiù dà huì), which hit streaming platforms over the summer, the young comedian became a national sensation almost overnight. By delivering an eclectic blend of thought-provoking, patriarchy-challenging jokes, Yang has earned rave reviews from women who felt heard and inspired — as well as a ferocious backlash from online trolls, who recently took their opposition to the political level with calls to have Yang censored over her “hate-inciting” views.

The renewed controversy surrounding Yang’s feminist men-bashing stemmed from her latest appearance on the year-end special episode of Rock & Roast, which asked a roster of the show’s previous contestants to share their biggest disappointments from 2020. When reflecting on her past year, Yang delivered a barn-burner of a tirade against her critics (in Chinese), blasting them for being misogynist and overly sensitive to critique. Continue reading →

African writing in Chinese translation

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Source: Bruce-Humes.com (1/4/21)
African Writing in Chinese Translation: 2020 Round-up and a Peek at 2021
By Bruce Humes

As Xi Jinping’s land and maritime Silk Road initiative reaches its tentacles further West into Africa, it’s not just accumulating alarming rates of China-driven debt and sucking up the continent’s mineral exports. Publishers in the People’s Paradise are now showing modest interest in importing what the authorities label  “cultural products.” In this case, contemporary African writing.

According to the latest statistics from the sole online mini-database in this niche, the bilingual African Writing in Chinese Translation (非洲文学:中文译本), lists 238 translated works by 100 African authors. That shows a healthy 63 percent increase over the 146 titles in early 2018.

African “diaspora” writer Chimamanda Adichie arguably generates the most buzz in China, and six of her books have been rendered into Chinese since 2013. But the second of Francophone author Alain Mabanckou’s novels also launched in a mainland edition during 2020. Both spend much of their time in the US.

The publication of My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite and Mabanckou’s Memoirs of a Porcupine suggest that China publishers are a tad more willing to experiment with new sources for disturbing psychological thrillers that involve homicide, a genre dominated by American and more recently, Japanese authors.

Perhaps the most intriguing of the 2020 newbies (December 2019, to be exact) was penned by a Zulu self-styled sangoma or diviner, Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa. His Indaba my Children, African Folk Tales is billed as a “graphic novel.” Continue reading →