Concentric: Studies in English Literature and Linguistics
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://rportal.lib.ntnu.edu.tw/handle/20.500.12235/219
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Item Untitled(英語學系, 2019-09-??) Angie ChauThis paper arises from a series of class discussions inspired by Shen Congwen’s (沈從文, 1902-88) short story about child marriage, “Xiaoxiao” (蕭蕭, 1929), which is set in the spring of 2018 during an unending series of breaking news stories related to sexual assault and sexual harassment in the workplace. Beginning from the close reading of one seemingly innocuous line in the English translation—“Finally, one day, she let Motley sing his way into her heart, and he made a woman of her”—the paper seeks to address the following questions: How can translational practices inform and revise conventional ways of reading canonical fictional texts, especially in relationship to current conversations about sexual harassment, rape, and the #MeToo movement? What is the pedagogical responsibility of educators teaching literature to address instances of sexual violence, especially in cultural and historical contexts that seem remote from our own? And finally, what is at stake in this rereading of modern Chinese literary classics? Drawing from examples in two frequently studied and taught short stories published in China during the Republican period—Shen Congwen’s “Xiaoxiao” and Mao Dun’s (茅盾, 1896-1981) “Chun can” (春蠶 “Spring Silkworms,” 1932)—I argue that translation in the present moment offers readers a valuable opportunity to re-examine commonly overlooked scenes of sexual ambiguity and abuse, especially in the field of East Asian literature, where many students arrive with a wide range of preconceptions and stereotypes about gender relations.Item Untitled(英語學系, 2019-09-??) Angie ChauThis paper arises from a series of class discussions inspired by Shen Congwen’s (沈從文, 1902-88) short story about child marriage, “Xiaoxiao” (蕭蕭, 1929), which is set in the spring of 2018 during an unending series of breaking news stories related to sexual assault and sexual harassment in the workplace. Beginning from the close reading of one seemingly innocuous line in the English translation—“Finally, one day, she let Motley sing his way into her heart, and he made a woman of her”—the paper seeks to address the following questions: How can translational practices inform and revise conventional ways of reading canonical fictional texts, especially in relationship to current conversations about sexual harassment, rape, and the #MeToo movement? What is the pedagogical responsibility of educators teaching literature to address instances of sexual violence, especially in cultural and historical contexts that seem remote from our own? And finally, what is at stake in this rereading of modern Chinese literary classics? Drawing from examples in two frequently studied and taught short stories published in China during the Republican period—Shen Congwen’s “Xiaoxiao” and Mao Dun’s (茅盾, 1896-1981) “Chun can” (春蠶 “Spring Silkworms,” 1932)—I argue that translation in the present moment offers readers a valuable opportunity to re-examine commonly overlooked scenes of sexual ambiguity and abuse, especially in the field of East Asian literature, where many students arrive with a wide range of preconceptions and stereotypes about gender relations.Item ＂An Archivist's Fantasy Gone Mad＂: The Age of Exhibition in Cao Fei's Posthuman Trilogy(英語學系, 2017-09-??) Angie ChauThis paper argues that in her recent films, the Chinese artist-filmmaker Cao Fei (曹斐, b. 1978) shows how the futility of art and technologies of exhibition is linked to the danger of overexposure to images without context, and the numbing of public consciousness. In the twenty-first century, the fear of forgetting seems increasingly obsolete in the face of social media tools like Facebook's ＂See Your Memories: Never Miss a Memory＂ feature, which excavates photos uploaded, shared, or tagged on the site years ago, reminding users to ＂look back＂ on otherwise lost memories. However, in recent Chinese fiction (Ma Jian's Beijing Coma; Chan Koonchung's The Fat Years; Liu Cixin's ＂The Weight of Memories＂), the trope of dormant memories remains noticeably prevalent, reflecting an urgent cultural concern about the conscious ＂act of deleting memories＂ (Yan Lianke) in the process of recording modern Chinese history. Whether in the form of documentary-style animation (i.Mirror, 2007), zombie-horror film (Haze and Fog, 2013), or stop-motion train-replica dioramas (La Town, 2014), Cao Fei fantasizes about a new posthuman consciousness, whose most serious trespass against humanity is not forgetting, but rather not feeling. Presenting disjointed scenes that call upon instances of trauma and surveillance, Cao's ＂posthuman trilogy＂ films suggest that when cosmopolitan memories become decontextualized, mere images no longer possess any meaningful symbolic power. Further, Cao's films demonstrate that voyeurism becomes an unavoidable yet inconsequential daily practice in the digital age of exhibition.