CROSSROADS IN CULTURAL STUDIES
Fourth International Conference
June 29 - July 2, 2002, Tampere, Finland
Beyond Master and Slave:Modernity's Chinese
Connection or Chinese-ness's Modern Connection
Organizer: Sebastian Hsien-hao Liao (National
Taiwan University, Taiwan)
Shan, Te-hsing (Academia Sinica, Taiwan)
TRAVELLING TEXTS, TRANSLATING GULLIVER: TRANSLATION, MODERNIZATION, AND PRINT
CULTURE IN THE LATE QING DYNASTY
The translation of literary texts into Chinese in the Late Qing Dynasty was
unique: it was the first massive translation of "literary" texts; it
was conducted by the civil society; it enabled the Chinese to better understand
their invaders as fellow human beings, rather than "foreign devils";
it provided an alternative to classical Chinese literature and facilitated the
popularization of vernacular literature; and it was part of culture industry in
which scholars, translators, and publishers gained in their respective ways.
This paper focuses on the three earliest Chinese translations of Gulliver's
Travelsas a "rewriting" in a daily newspaper in 1872, as a translation
with illustrations in a bi-monthly, and as a book co-translated by two literati,
one of whom knew nothing about any foreign language. This early reception
history exemplifies the relationship between translation, modernization, and
print culture in the late Qing period.
Tsai, Shu-ling (Tamkang University,
Taiwan) THE CHINESE MODE AS LIMINAL: THE POSTSTRUCTURALIST CHINESE CONNECTION
In the preface of the 2001 edition of the Chinese Women first published in 1974,
Julia Kristeva stresses an antithetical mode of meaning production; the close
relationship between the functioning of language system and the mode of thinking
has to be taken into consideration in the analysis of the establishment of norm
which regulates differentiation of meanings in cultural historical context. At
the borderline of men/women, spirit/body, community/individual,
globalization/localization, what has to be carefully examined is the «liminal
experience» against the norm in different language and cultural systems. Our
major concern will be: how can the «Chinese» mode of meaning production
contribute to questioning notions of group identity as well as rigid systems of
classification.
Lin, Wenchi (National Central
University, Taiwan) TAIPEI AT THE END OF THE WORLD
In 1998, two Taiwanese films announced the cultural as well as social death
in/of Taipei City, which had just begun wallowing in the dubious euphoria of
"globalization." In Wan Ren's Super-Citizen, colonial history,
political struggle, individual human existenceeverything that used to matter in
the city seem to have lost meaning in the face of the so-called
"globalization," a fad that has brought an all-leveling urbanization
to Taipei, where time is being annihilated by space and suicide marks the only
way out. Similarly, in The Hole by Mingliang Tsai, who has been considered the
most poignant observer of Taipei's urban malaise, depicts a city that seems
completely deserted except for two living in an empty apartment facing incessant
rainfall. Both films reflect on the spiritual vacuum that late capitalism has
engendered and that devours all possibilities because, deprived of any
deep-rooted local cultures, no other alternatives seem to offer themselves.
Liao, Sebastian Hsien-hao (National
Taiwan University, Taiwan) (WHERE) DOES MODERNITY EXIST? THE TWO RECEPTIONS OF
WESTERN MODERNISM IN TAIWAN
There have been for a long time disputes as to which actually was the
"true" origin of Taiwan's literary modernism: the modernism practiced
by the Taiwanese poets during the Japanese occupation period or that transmitted
here by the mainland poets after the Japanese left? This dispute over the
originary status concerns less the genealogy of influence but more the cultural
and for that matter political legitimacy (i.e. who can claim political
"ownership" of Taiwan?), one that ultimately centers round who brought
modernity to Taiwan? The Japanese (and by extension the Taiwanese locals) or the
Chinese? That is, which possesses the "phallus" by which we prove we
are citizens of the "globe?" Ironically, however, the fact that the
mainland brand of modernism eventually became dominant might be accounted for by
among other things its going back to the Chinese literary traditions and the
local brand's failure to do so.
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