New publications

posts related to new publications in Chinese studies

1 Plus Books

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I have a publisher friend who used to work in China but has now moved herself and her business  to California. Among emerging independent publishers outside China, 1 plus Books has concentrated on publishing personal histories and other books in humanities that could fill the huge vacuum left by China’s censorship, which increasingly suffocates the creative space in China. This series by  Zi Zhongyun, an outspoken Chinese translator and historian, from 1 plus Books, speaks volumes about this situation.  It is also an interesting case that testifies to the potential of diasporic culture and global Chinese writing/publishing. I am working on a study about these publishers (publishing books in Chinese) outside China.

Shuyu Kong <shuyu_kong@sfu.ca>

资中筠先生新书《夕照漫笔》(上下卷)出版

著名学者资中筠的最新自选集《夕照漫笔》，最近由位于美国加州旧金山湾区的壹嘉出版推出。这是是继2011年《资中筠自选集》、2013年《老生常谈》之后，资先生的又一个自选集，收入其2013-2022年间尚未入集的文章，以及讲座整理稿、访谈记录。年逾九旬的资先生依然思维敏锐，笔耕不辍。《夕照漫笔》共两卷，包括文化教育、公益与社会改良、历史与救国、世界观察、思故人、音乐家园、闲情与杂感和访谈录八个小辑，涉及学术思考、公共话题、私人生活等各个方面。

“难求于世有济，但行此心所安”。资先生修改曾国藩名联以自况。不阿世，不迎俗，倡导中国读书人摆脱”帝师”情结……洋洋五十万言，所思所虑，还是”生于斯、长于斯、终老于斯的本乡本土”。 Continue reading 1 Plus Books →

Don’t Change Your Husband

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The Chinese Film Classics Project is delighted to announce the publication of Lorraine Shen’s translation of the film “Don’t Change Your Husband” 情海重吻 (Xie Yunqing 謝雲卿, dir., 1929):

https://chinesefilmclassics.org/dont-change-your-husband-1929/

ABOUT THE FILM

Qinghai chongwen 情海重吻
Alternative English title: Kissed Again in a Sea of Love
Directed by Y.C. Zai (Xie Yunqing 謝雲卿)
Cinematography: S.M. Chow (Zhou Shimu 周詩穆) and P.H. Yuen (Yan Bingheng 嚴秉衡)
Set design: S.K. Fu (Hu Xuguang 胡旭光)
Starring: Lyton Wang (Wang Naidong 王乃東), T.S. Tong (Tang Tianxiu 湯天繡)
Studio: Great China Lilium (Da Zhonghua baihe yingpian gongsi 大中華百合影片公司)
Date of release: January 20, 1929
Running time: 61 minutes
Silent, with bilingual Chinese-English title cards
English subtitles translated by Lorraine Shen
Subtitles created by Liu Yuqing

This conservative tale, in which a patriarch and his son-in-law forgive errant and meddling women, wins the Oscar for most male onscreen weeping. Female infidelity, male suffering, and marital reconciliation are dominant themes (with a little light farce thrown in), as in other moral dramas such as Love and Duty 戀愛與義務 (1931) and A Dream in Pink 粉紅色的夢 (1932). Lyton Wang 王乃東, who plays the victimized husband, went on to fame as the rake “Dr. Wang,” the nemesis of Ruan Lingyu’s character in New Women 新女性 (1935). Kissed Again in a Sea of Love, as its Chinese title might be translated, borrows its English title from Cecil B. DeMille’s Don’t Change Your Husband (1919), starring Gloria Swanson. Like many Chinese silent films, it features bilingual Chinese-English title cards. Continue reading Don’t Change Your Husband →

Old Lady Wang and Her Piglet

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Here’s my third–and, for now, final–translation of a Lu Ling short story, this one titled “Old Lady Wang and Her Piglet” (1944). It appears below and at its online home: https://u.osu.edu/mclc/online-series/old-lady-wang/.

Enjoy,

Kirk Denton, MCLC

Old Lady Wang and Her Piglet
王家老太婆和她的小豬

By Lu Ling 路翎

Translated by Kirk A. Denton [*]

MCLC Resource Center Publication (Copyright March 2023)

Cover of In Search of Love and Other Stories.

A winter’s night, and although it had only just turned nine o’clock, the village on the bank of the river was dead silent. Not a single light could be seen in the village, or along the riverbank, or in the surrounding fields. Under thick, formless gray clouds, the dark shadows of houses clustered on the slope and those of the wooden boats clustered by the shore lay heavy, forlorn, desolate. In the gray dark, giving off a faint light, the river sounded a wild cry and flowed on. A cold wind began to blow in the rain.

The streets had long been deserted. The sound of the wind and rain made the small village appear yet darker and more desolate. Off the main street, from a small lane cluttered with run-down shacks, came a clear, sharp, and emotion-filled voice, now angry, now anxious, now admonishing, now consoling; accompanying the voice was the crisp cracking sound of a bamboo stick and the coarse high-pitched squeal of a pig. In the deep still night and cold rain these sounds were so clear and anxious they could be heard far into the distance. Continue reading Old Lady Wang and Her Piglet →

Queer TV China

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Dear Colleagues,

We are delighted to announce the publication of our new anthology Queer TV China: Televisual and Fannish Imaginaries of Gender, Sexuality, and Chineseness (Hong Kong University Press, 2023).

The 2010s have seen an explosion in popularity of Chinese television featuring same-sex intimacies, LGBTQ-identified celebrities, and explicitly homoerotic storylines even as state regulations on “vulgar” and “immoral” content grow more prominent. This emerging “queer TV China” culture has generated diverse, cyber, and transcultural queer fan communities. Yet these seemingly progressive televisual productions and practices are caught between multilayered sociocultural and political-economic forces and interests.

Taking “queer” as a verb, an adjective, and a noun, this volume counters the Western-centric conception of homosexuality as the only way to understand nonnormative identities and same-sex desire in the Chinese and Sinophone worlds. It proposes an analytical framework of “queer/ing TV China” to explore the power of various TV genres and narratives, censorial practices, and fandoms in queer desire-voicing and subject formation within a largely heteropatriarchal society. Through examining nine cases contesting the ideals of gender, sexuality, Chineseness, and TV production and consumption, the book also reveals the generative, negotiative ways in which queerness works productively within and against mainstream, seemingly heterosexual-oriented, televisual industries and fan spaces.

Edited by Jamie J. Zhao, assistant professor in media and cultural studies in the School of Creative Media at City University of Hong Kong. Continue reading Queer TV China →

How We Kill a Glove

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I am delighted to announce the publication of Ma Lan’s poetry collection, How We Kill a Glove, in a Chinese/English bilingual edition from Argos Books, with translations by Martine Bellen and me. The official release date is April 15, but it is already available for purchase at https://argosbooks.org/?cat=3.

Charles A. Laughlin
University of Virginia

Abstract: Ma Lan writes poems that carry us suddenly into the vast, strange worlds of myth and dream. Blurring the lines between subject and object, Ma’s poetry reveals the character, the liveliness inherent in objects, which seems hidden but never really was (“I wrap a floral tablecloth around my body/making the napkins line up naked”); her poems operate their own internal logic that aligns and then departs from the logic of shared reality (“Death never rejects a reason for ceasing to breathe”). Charles Laughlin’s sensitive, acute translation of Ma Lan’s poems bring readers into a world where “Poets are flirtatious horses”, moving with all of the might and symbolism of ancient folklore. Ma, a member of the Muslim Hui ethnic nationality in China, builds surreal spaces in these poems, embedding them with mysterious and at times menacing political undertones. “Where does it come from, this ponderous density?” she asks, using language to search the physical and metaphysical. “Like dreaming a dream beyond the universe.” Continue reading How We Kill a Glove →

The Sacred Marriage

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Source: China Daily (2/20/23)
New novel explores challenges faced by urban elites in the new era
By Yang Yang

Shensheng Hunyin (The Sacred Marriage) by Xu Kun. [Photo provided to China Daily]

A new novel Shensheng Hunyin (The Sacred Marriage) by Xu Kun has been recently published by People’s Literature Publishing House.

Xu, with a broad vision and in a sharp writing style, directly addresses the dramatic and complicated changes that young people who return from overseas, outsiders coming to work in Beijing, intellectuals, and cadres who are sent on a temporary task are facing in a new era of the development of Chinese society.

Vivid personal experiences, powerful characterization, and heart-wrenching pain not only display Xu’s unique writing style of playfulness and irony, but also imparts the story with profound feelings.

“From narration to structure, from characterization to plotting, The Sacred Marriage shows the internal rhythm of the new era we are now existing in,” said Li Yan, general manager of China Publishing Group, at the book launch ceremony in Beijing.

“It displays the aesthetic characteristics of fiction in the new era, while exploring serious topics, using China’s traditional cultural value to examine the experiences and changes of urban elites, intellectuals and overseas returnees,” he said. Continue reading The Sacred Marriage →

Made in China 7.2

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Dear Colleagues,

I am happy to announce the publication of the latest issue of the Made in China Journal. You can download it for free at this link:

madeinchinajournal.com/2023/01/19/prometheus-in-china.

Below you can find the editorial:

Prometheus in China: Techno-Optimism and Its Discontents

In 2020, Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping pledged to ‘transition to a green and low-carbon mode of development’, as well as to ‘peak the country’s CO2 emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060’. Xi’s pledge offered a tangible example of what has come to be known as the ecological civilisation (生态文明)—the idea of engineered harmony between humans and nature that was recently incorporated into the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China. But what kind of engineering is required for sustainable transitions at this scale and pace? Through which political concepts and technical practices could such a harmonious rebalancing of China’s resource-devouring development be envisioned and achieved? Continue reading Made in China 7.2 →

“Autumn Night” by Lu Ling

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I’ve been working on translations of a few short stories by Lu Ling 路翎 (1923-1994) that I will be making available through the MCLC Resource Center web publication series. Here is the first—”Autumn Night” (1944). It appears below and at its online home: https://u.osu.edu/mclc/online-series/autumn-night/.

Kirk Denton, MCLC

Autumn Night 秋夜

By Lu Ling 路翎

Translated by Kirk A. Denton [*]

MCLC Resource Center Publication (Copyright February 2023)

A young Lu Ling, circa early 1940s.

When Zhang Boyao, a clerk for the county government, heard the county magistrate hold forth that morning on the merits and rewards of strenuous study, it dawned on him how very young he still was and something stirred inside him. Before lunch, paging through some “Secrets to the Success of Great Men,” he had a noble presentiment that provoked a plan of great passion. He borrowed a copy of Selections from the Classics and an Introduction to Accounting and took an abacus from the office; first he read “Military Counsel” by Master Zhuge Liang, then he read some accounting, practiced the abacus, and drew some charts—hard into the wee hours of the morning. He felt contented, full of yearning. There was no one around; a cold fall wind blew outside, and the indistinct sound of dogs barking could be heard in the distance. He listened intensely and felt that this was the most beautiful moment of his life.

“How nice to sit here reading quietly, I didn’t even notice the time!” he said, pushing aside the abacus in front of him and stretching. Continue reading “Autumn Night” by Lu Ling →

CLTT 53, 3-4

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Dear colleagues,

We are running a free access period for the latest double-issue of Chinese Literature and Thought Today (CLTT) from now to March 31, 2023. During this period you can read and download all the essays in this issue for free.

https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/mcsp21/53/3-4

CLTT v53, n3&4 (2022) features the second part of the special section “Re-Aestheticizing Labor” (guest-edited by Zhuoyi Wang and Ping Zhu) and “Chinese Literature and Culture in the Time of Contagion” (guest-edited by Howard Choy). The featured scholar is Chinese philosopher Deng Xiaomang 邓晓芒.

Our cover art is Ai Xiaoming’s 艾晓明 finger painting “Bird of Paradise” (天堂鸟). Please take advantage of the free access period to check out our brand new contents!

best,

Ping Zhu (Acting Editor in Chief)

PRISM 19.2

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NEW PUBLICATION. PRISM 19:2 Special Issue:The Worlds of Southeast Asian Chinese Literature

We are pleased to announce the publication of Prism: Theory and Modern Chinese Literature‘s special issue “The Worlds of Southeast Asian Chinese Literature,” guest-edited by Carlos Rojas and CHAN Cheow Thia.

For centuries, multiple waves of Chinese migrants have fanned out to Southeast Asia, interacting in different ways with local populations and establishing complex legacies. This special issue examines some of these legacies through the prism of modern and contemporary Chinese literature from Southeast Asia, including literature written in various Sinitic languages, literatures written in creole, and also literature written in English. The special issue not only examines these literary formations and the worlds that they represent, it also showcases different interpretive methodologies that can be used to approach this rapidly developing field.

More about this special issue could be found at the following websites:

Volume 19 Issue 2 | Prism | Duke University Press (dukeupress.edu)

A Duke University Press Journal (wordpress.com)

Posted by: Heidi Huang heidihuang@ln.edu.hk

Victor H. Mair: A Celebration

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Invitation to Contribute to Tabula Gratulatoria for Professor Victor H. Mair’s 80th Birthday

Hundreds, if not thousands, of people have benefited from the kindness of Professor Victor H. Mair. Stories proliferate of him coming to the aid of others. Just a fraction of these stories of his generosity are being published in Victor H. Mair: A Celebration, edited by Neil Schmid and Diana Shuheng Zhang. As Victor Mair turns 80 on March 25, 2023, colleagues and students reflect, in reminiscences that range from touching to hilarious, on how he has impacted their lives. This collection includes essays from luminaries like Ronald Egan, Daniel Boucher, Valerie Hansen, Haun Saussy, Tansen Sen, and more. Together, the 38 essays show how Victor H. Mair has served as a selfless pioneer across disciplines, opening doors to all interested and providing a model of mentorship.

From the introduction of the book:

“Few people would ever imagine that behind the vast piles of overflowing books and papers in a small office on the eighth floor of Williams Hall on the University of Pennsylvania campus lies the epicenter of a complex network spanning immense reaches of space and time. That vast web, like the books and papers, has rapidly expanded over the decades, ever since Victor H. Mair’s arrival on Penn’s campus in 1979, his home now for more than forty years. Victor’s boundless curiosity, indefatigable energy, and proficient talents at making connections among disparate phenomena has resulted in hundreds of publications, numerous cooperative projects, and most importantly a rich network of students, colleagues, and friends. His research and interests span domains as far afield as Proto-Indo European linguistics, twentieth-century Chinese literature, and Warring States archaeology, the diversity of areas equally matched with fellow-minded colleagues and conversation partners around the world.”

Be Part of This Book: Please join us in honoring Professor Mair on his 80th birthday with a contribution of $80 toward the publication of this tribute. Your gift will place your name on the tabula gratulatoria, memorializing your part in this important celebration of Victor H. Mair.

To contribute to this publication and include your name, please do so by February 20  at http://cambriapress.com/VictorMair80.

Ben Goodman
Marketing Dept., Cambria Press

Performing the Socialist State

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Performing the Socialist State

Performing the Socialist State: Modern Chinese Theater and Film Culture, Xiaomei Chen’s new book, will be published on February 7, 2023, when it should be readily available for purchase everywhere Columbia UP books are sold. But it can be purchased directly from the Press website now and will ship straightaway. The webpage for this book is:

https://cup.columbia.edu/book/performing-the-socialist-state/9780231197762

Customers who purchase the book through the Columbia UP website will receive a 20% discount off the price of the book by using the promo code CUP20. Feel free to share this code on your social media accounts, in newsletters, in email outreach, on your website, and in any other places you may be telling your contacts about the book.

Performing the Socialist State offers an innovative account of the origins, evolution, and legacies of key trends in twentieth-century Chinese theater. Instead of seeing the Republican, high socialist, and postsocialist periods as radically distinct, it identifies key continuities in theatrical practices and shared aspirations for the social role and artistic achievements of performance across eras. Continue reading Performing the Socialist State →

Taiwan Literature in the 21st Century

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Dear colleagues,

We are thrilled to announce that Taiwan Literature in the 21st Century: A Critical Reader has been published by Springer.

This anthology involves wide-ranging topics, such as the rewriting of Taiwanese history, human rights, political and social transitions, post-nativism, Indigenous consciousness, science fiction, ecocriticism, gender and queer studies, and localization and globalization. The goal is to rethink these existing topics and further explore innovative takes on Taiwan literature in the contemporary era.

If you are interested, please check out the book via the link below.

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-19-8380-1

Sincerely,

Chia-rong Wu, Associate Professor, University of Canterbury, New Zealand <chiarong.wu@canterbury.ac.nz>
Ming-ju Fan, Professor, National Chengchi University, Taiwan

Chinese Film: Realism and Convention: Open-Access Edition

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The book Chinese Film: Realism and Convention from the Silent Era to the Digital Age, by Jason McGrath, is now available not just in paperback, hardcover, and ebook but also in an open-access online Manifold edition that includes well over one hundred extra features, including color versions of many of the book’s figures, extra figures beyond the sixty in the print edition, and more than eighty video clips showing all the film scenes discussed at any length in the book. The open-access edition will be available through academic publishing databases such as JSTOR and Project MUSE and also can be accessed directly at https://manifold.umn.edu/projects/chinese-film. This is thanks to a Towards an Open Monograph Ecosystem (TOME) grant from the University of Minnesota Libraries and College of Liberal Arts and the work of the University of Minnesota Press. The Manifold edition makes the book available to students and scholars throughout the world at no cost.

Chinese Film: Realism and Convention from the Silent Era to the Digital Age is a history of mainland Chinese fiction film focusing on the various claims for cinematic realism made over a century of cinema in China. It describes a historical dialectics of realism and convention, in which realisms define themselves both through and in opposition to conventions of various sorts, whether those of indigenous Chinese drama, classical Hollywood cinema, melodrama, socialist realism, neorealism, or contemporary blockbuster cinema. The book not only traces a historical narrative of Chinese film history but also contributes to the theory of cinematic realism by parsing the differences between ontological, perceptual, fictional, social, prescriptive, and apophatic conceptions of realism as they played out in specific landmark films over the Republican, Maoist, and post-socialist eras.

Jason McGrath <jmcgrath@umn.edu>