Organizer/Chair: Fumiko Jōo, University of Chicago/University of Tokyo
This panel aims to examine conflicts over identity formation through close readings of Chinese fiction and drama from the late imperial and early Republican periods. By analyzing the process by which socio-political, cultural and religious forces collided and reshaped the identities of writers and readers, the speakers on this panel intend to explore a variety of case studies regarding Chinese writers’ struggles in writing. Our presentation topics range from literary self-representation during the late Ming and the editorial challenge of literary genres in the High-Qing, to the emergence of national sentiment and debates over popular literature during the late Qing and Republican periods.1) Fumiko Jōo, University of Chicago/University of Tokyo
Gender Performance and the Salvation of Women in Ye Xiaowan’s Dream of the Mandarin Ducks
Ye Xiaowan’s (1613–1657) Dream of the Mandarin Ducks (Yuanyang meng) is the only surviving text of a play written by a woman during the Ming period. In this drama she depicted herself and her dead sisters as male siblings. Through close readings of her drama and her family’s writings, this paper discusses how seriously a gentry-class woman pursued religious enlightenment and struggled against the popular discourse between talented beauties and their unfortunate fates in seventeenth-century China.
According
to Buddhist
teachings, women’s bodies prevented them from attaining Buddhahood. For
serious Buddhist women such as the Ye sisters, the issue of women’s
salvation was more significant than men would imagine. Ye Xiaowan
wished to gain religious salvation by imagining herself and her sisters
as men. Her father Ye Shaoyuan, on the other hand, imagined that a
female spirit called Master Le constructed an underground women’s
religious community and would lead the Ye women to prepare for
enlightenment after death. Yet, Xiaowan refused to rely on this
fantastic place for women. While transforming both her and her sisters’
alter egos into men, Xiaowan also borrowed from Daoist depictions of
immortal women, which frequently appear in the Chinese literary
tradition. Unlike male writers, however, she did not believe in the
romantic association of reincarnated immortals with ill-fated beauties.
This paper argues that as a survivor, she struggled to reassure herself
of her own talent while internalizing the popular discourse about the
gifted beauty and pre-mature death.
2) William C. Hedberg, Harvard University
Allusion and Precedent in Li Boyuan's “Gengzi guobian tanci”
My
presentation will focus upon the late Qing prosimetric work "Gengzi
guobian tanci
(Ballad
of the Events of 1900)" by the journalist, scholar, and entrepreneur Li
Boyuan (1867–1906).
Written directly after the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion by an
international coalition, the tanci is a forty-chapter work that
attempts to identify the causes of the uprising, narrate its main
events, and assign blame for the unequal treaty provisions following
the Boxers' defeat. I argue that Li Boyuan attempts to create a sense
of continuity at a period of historical disjuncture by referencing
other well-known literary works centered upon catastrophe and the fall
of the state--most notably those concerned with the An Lushan rebellion
or the collapse of the Ming. However, this attempt at familiarizing the
failed rebellion by referencing previous instances of political
upheaval is rendered ineffective by the unprecedented international
scale upon which the narrative of the tanci takes place. While the
consolation to be found in the early Qing works Li cites rests upon the
ability to create a distinction between an abstract foreign entity and
a reified "Chineseness" that can exist independently of the political
state, Li's sense of China's position in relation to an international
network prevents him from making the simple binary distinctions that
characterize the works to which he alludes.
3) Hui Luo, Victoria University of Wellington
Genre, Canon, Censorship: the Cultural Ascension of Liaozhai zhiyi (Strange Tales from the Make-do
Studio)
When
Pu Songling died in 1715, he left behind multiple manuscript versions
of nearly five hundred strange tales, occupying an embattled zone
between two traditional Chinese genres (zhiguai and chuanqi, now
collectively known as xiaoshuo). Since the author’s death,
generations of critics and commentators have been grappling with the
issues of genre, legitimacy, canonicity, and a host of extra-literary
ramifications that the work has spawned. This paper examines two
instances of censorship related to Liaozhai zhiyi (henceforth Liaozhai)
during the eighteenth century―Zhao Qigao’s (d. 1766) deletion of
forty-eight tales from the first print edition and Ji Yun’s (1724–1805)
exclusion of Liaozhai
from the Qianlong imperial library catalogue. While Ji Yun
dismissed the fictionality of Liaozhai as unfitting for his definition
of xiaoshuo as unofficial historiography, Zhao Qigao’s promotion
of Liaozhai aesthetics dovetailed with the growing prestige of xiaoshuo as literary fiction. Although both Ji Yun’s rejection of Liaozhai
and Zhao Qigao’s promotion of it seem to be based on the literary issue
of genre, their critical intervention has been interpreted by later
scholars in an overwhelmingly political light. Upon closer
examination, both instances of censorship also reveal deeply personal
motivations that have been obscured by ideological
considerations. Liaozhai’s critical reception and canonization
thus offer a case study of the tensions within the development of
xiaoshuo as a literary genre. This study also seeks to
demonstrate that a truly inventive work of literature can embody, in
Bakhtinian fashion, “an orientation in life” that resists any rigid
definitions of genre.
4) Hailin Zhou, Villanova University
On Sato Koryoku: Zhang Ziping’s Argument for Popular Literature
In
autumn 1932, the serial, “Shida yu Aideqilu” (The Times and Love at the
Crossroads) on Shenbao written by Zhang Ziping was suspended. The
serial not only anachronistically depicted the complicated love stories
among the Chinese bourgeoisie, but also revealed his discontent with
the left-wing literature movement, which had reached its peak by that
time. Therefore, he was criticized by audiences, especially the
left-wing intellectuals. Zhang attributed his failure to Lu Xun,
believing that it is Lu Xun who conspired with the Chinese literary
circle against him; thus arousing the controversy
with Lu Xun and
his friends, which consequence is he had to gave up his career as
novelist for a long time. A few years later, in his “Preface to the
Translation for ‘Hannin Hanjyu’ (Between the Human and the Beast) by
Japanese novelist Sato Koryoku,” Zhang defended the artistic nature of
popular literature, justifying his fame as a love story writer, which
was ridiculed by Lu Xun and the left-wing writers. My interest is in
how and why
Koryoku’s literature drew Zhang’s sympathy and through
his discourse, we may realize the conflict between Zhang and his
contemporaries actually lies in different ideas about what literature
should be. By examining Zhang’s translation of Koryoku’s “Between the
Human and the Beast,” this paper will reveal the diverse ideas on
popular literature between Japan and China, which are grounded in
different cultural, political, and historical contexts.
Discussant: Yasushi Ōki, University of Tokyo