A cypress tree appeared among the gently rolling hills ahead. It remained within her field of vision for a long timer for a while to the left, then to the right. Everything else was covered in short fields of tea, wit...A cypress tree appeared among the gently rolling hills ahead. It remained within her field of vision for a long timer for a while to the left, then to the right. Everything else was covered in short fields of tea, without a single person visible. The sky was vast, with a few clouds. As the bus rumbled down the dirt road, Ah San looked at the cypress tree through the bars on the window and thought to herself： Actually, it all began with her love for Bill.展开更多
Mother had arrived. She showed up wearing an immaculate black coat just as clean and smooth as her evenly combed hair, and carrying with her a load of fried pancakes, dried shrimp, jellyfish, and pickles. But her comp...Mother had arrived. She showed up wearing an immaculate black coat just as clean and smooth as her evenly combed hair, and carrying with her a load of fried pancakes, dried shrimp, jellyfish, and pickles. But her complexion was a bit washed out, most likely owing to a sauabble with my sister-in-law.展开更多
A subtle aspect of Lu Xun＇s writing, running through several of his works of fiction, is his animalistic portrayal of some of his most well-known characters. Scraping away their humanity as he writes, Lu Xun depicts ...A subtle aspect of Lu Xun＇s writing, running through several of his works of fiction, is his animalistic portrayal of some of his most well-known characters. Scraping away their humanity as he writes, Lu Xun depicts Kong Yiji, Xianglin Sao, and the infamous Madman crawling on their hands and knees, working like draught animals, and abandoning all rational thought. In short, all three end up occupying an ambiguous space between the realms of human and animal. This paper attempts to examine how Lu Xun＇s description and situation of these characters suggests, aside from the standard agendas of May Fourth writing in general, a certain, shared metaphysical conundrum. Drawing on the work of Giorgio Agamben to take the hiatus between human and animal as an occasion for ontological possibility, I will investigate how the dehumanized portrayal of these characters situates them at the threshold of a new becoming： one which has not yet been realized, but which is also rendered impossible either through the character＇s death or return to health. Examining Lu Xun＇s works in this way not only recognizes his major emphasis on social critique, but suggests both that his thought on Chinese society pierces through to the level of metaphysical inquiry, and that the relationship between human and animal marks a productive entry point for this sort of questioning.展开更多
Xudong Zhang:We all encounter this problem when we read early avant・garde works:Although the reading itself is enjoyable,we still want to figure out the exact meanings of the text.I discussed this question with Su Ton...Xudong Zhang:We all encounter this problem when we read early avant・garde works:Although the reading itself is enjoyable,we still want to figure out the exact meanings of the text.I discussed this question with Su Tong蘇童on our way here,and he agreed that this is true when reading short stories・I will invite him to say a few more words on the subject later.展开更多
Of the many forms of literary experimentation that arose in China during the 198os, Can Xue＇s writing stands out as some of the strangest and most enigmatic. This article intends to examine her most significant work ...Of the many forms of literary experimentation that arose in China during the 198os, Can Xue＇s writing stands out as some of the strangest and most enigmatic. This article intends to examine her most significant work from that period, Five Spice Street （Wuxiang jie; first published under the title Breakthrough Performance [Tuwei biaoyan]）, in light of one of the major intellectual concerns in literature at the time： the question of the human. Through a close reading of the novel, I investigate the ways in which Can Xue interrogates and destabilizes the notion of the human with regard to the relationship between subject and object, corporeality, animality, sexuality, language, and time. Overall, I suggest that while Can Xue succeeds in offering a unique and provocative conceptualization of the human in Five Spice Street, she also refrains from ＂breaking through＂ the general realm of humanist discourse current at the time.展开更多
While modern Chinese literature in English translation may be enjoying increased visibility in recent years, prose poetry （Sanwen shi 散文诗） has hardly become a familiar genre （even for those of us in the field of...While modern Chinese literature in English translation may be enjoying increased visibility in recent years, prose poetry （Sanwen shi 散文诗） has hardly become a familiar genre （even for those of us in the field of Chinese literature, if I may take myself as an example）. Realizing, furthermore, that Recite and Refuse focuses primarily on contemporary prose poetry and is therefore only tangentially concerned with Lu Xun＇s well-known masterpiece Wild Grass.展开更多
文摘A cypress tree appeared among the gently rolling hills ahead. It remained within her field of vision for a long timer for a while to the left, then to the right. Everything else was covered in short fields of tea, without a single person visible. The sky was vast, with a few clouds. As the bus rumbled down the dirt road, Ah San looked at the cypress tree through the bars on the window and thought to herself： Actually, it all began with her love for Bill.
文摘Mother had arrived. She showed up wearing an immaculate black coat just as clean and smooth as her evenly combed hair, and carrying with her a load of fried pancakes, dried shrimp, jellyfish, and pickles. But her complexion was a bit washed out, most likely owing to a sauabble with my sister-in-law.
文摘A subtle aspect of Lu Xun＇s writing, running through several of his works of fiction, is his animalistic portrayal of some of his most well-known characters. Scraping away their humanity as he writes, Lu Xun depicts Kong Yiji, Xianglin Sao, and the infamous Madman crawling on their hands and knees, working like draught animals, and abandoning all rational thought. In short, all three end up occupying an ambiguous space between the realms of human and animal. This paper attempts to examine how Lu Xun＇s description and situation of these characters suggests, aside from the standard agendas of May Fourth writing in general, a certain, shared metaphysical conundrum. Drawing on the work of Giorgio Agamben to take the hiatus between human and animal as an occasion for ontological possibility, I will investigate how the dehumanized portrayal of these characters situates them at the threshold of a new becoming： one which has not yet been realized, but which is also rendered impossible either through the character＇s death or return to health. Examining Lu Xun＇s works in this way not only recognizes his major emphasis on social critique, but suggests both that his thought on Chinese society pierces through to the level of metaphysical inquiry, and that the relationship between human and animal marks a productive entry point for this sort of questioning.
文摘Xudong Zhang:We all encounter this problem when we read early avant・garde works:Although the reading itself is enjoyable,we still want to figure out the exact meanings of the text.I discussed this question with Su Tong蘇童on our way here,and he agreed that this is true when reading short stories・I will invite him to say a few more words on the subject later.
文摘Of the many forms of literary experimentation that arose in China during the 198os, Can Xue＇s writing stands out as some of the strangest and most enigmatic. This article intends to examine her most significant work from that period, Five Spice Street （Wuxiang jie; first published under the title Breakthrough Performance [Tuwei biaoyan]）, in light of one of the major intellectual concerns in literature at the time： the question of the human. Through a close reading of the novel, I investigate the ways in which Can Xue interrogates and destabilizes the notion of the human with regard to the relationship between subject and object, corporeality, animality, sexuality, language, and time. Overall, I suggest that while Can Xue succeeds in offering a unique and provocative conceptualization of the human in Five Spice Street, she also refrains from ＂breaking through＂ the general realm of humanist discourse current at the time.
文摘While modern Chinese literature in English translation may be enjoying increased visibility in recent years, prose poetry （Sanwen shi 散文诗） has hardly become a familiar genre （even for those of us in the field of Chinese literature, if I may take myself as an example）. Realizing, furthermore, that Recite and Refuse focuses primarily on contemporary prose poetry and is therefore only tangentially concerned with Lu Xun＇s well-known masterpiece Wild Grass.
