Author: Yueling Ji

Translating Premodern Chinese Buddhist Texts

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Public Lecture on Translating Premodern Chinese Buddhist Texts:
Five Ways of Reading Chinese Buddhist History  
Professor John Kieschnick, Stanford University
Please note special time and location：
Saturday, 5/25, 9AM-12PM, Cobb Hall 110, followed by a catered lunch

Led by Professor John Kieschnick, this workshop will take as its starting point the chapter on recitation from the tenth-century collection Song Biographies of Eminent Monks (宋高僧傳‧讀誦篇).Professor Kieschnick will introduce genres of Buddhist historical writing in China, the composite nature of Chinese historiography, the Buddhist canon in China and other topics useful for understanding the material. The goal is, by focusing on one specific example of Buddhist historiography, to provide an overview of the genre and inspire participants to explore new ways of understanding it.
There is no pre-circulated text for this event. The event will be followed by a catered lunch fromLotus Cafe and Bahn Mi Sandwiches. We look forward to seeing you there!

Yiren Zheng

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Yiren Zheng (PhD Candidate, EALC)
Listening to Sonic Excess in 17th Century China
Discussant: William Carroll (PhD, CMS & EALC)
Friday, May 10, 3-5PM
Special location: ​EALC Seminar Room, Wieboldt Hall 301N
Followed by a catered dinner from La Petite Folie


On May 10 from 3PM to 5PM, the Art and Politics of East Asia Workshop will host Yiren Zheng (PhD candidate, EALC). Yiren will present a chapter of her dissertation, “Listening to Sonic Excess in 17th Century China.” Yiren offers the following abstract:

 
This chapter traces an unexplored discourse centered on forms of sonic excess embedded in 17th-century classical Chinese writings. The sonic excess includes both excessive sounding and excessive listening, which urge us to rethink the norms of sound-making and listening. By observing how several writers in the late Ming and the early Qing, including Pan Zhiheng (1556-1622), Chen Ding (1650-?) and Pu Songling (1640-1715) imagined forms of sonic excess, this chapter examines how speech became a problem through accidental and unexpected confrontations with alternative forms of communication. 

Chenxin Jiang

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Chenxin Jiang (PhD Candidate, Social Thought)
Philhellenism and Philosophy in 1920s China
Discussant: Yanxiao He (PhD Student, Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations)
Friday, April 12, 3-5PM
Location: CEAS 319 (1155 E 60th St)

On April 12th from 3:00pm to 5:00pm the Art and Politics of East Asia workshop will host Chenxin Jiang (PhD Candidate, Social Thought). She will present “Philhellenism and Philosophy in 1920s China,” a chapter of her dissertation. Chenxin offers the following abstract:

This paper is about the 1920s journal Xueheng (Critical Review) and its translations of Plato and Aristotle into Chinese. Specifically, I read Xueheng’s translation practice as an intervention into the question of how the Chinese cultural tradition should be understood in light of global history, focusing on two critical questions: the place of Chinese thought in a global history of philosophy, and the Renaissance as a keenly contested historical parallel for contemporary China.

Spring 2019 Schedule

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Art and Politics of East Asia Workshop (APEA) is excited to announce the Spring 2019 schedule.

 

Location: Center for East Asian Studies, Room 319, 1155 E 60th St

Time: Friday, 3-5PM

Please note special location or time for some events.

 

April 12

Chenxin Jiang (PhD Candidate, Social Thought)

Philhellenism and Philosophy in 1920s China

Discussant: Yanxiao He (PhD Student, Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations)

Followed by a catered dinner

 

April 19

Professionalization Workshop with EALC Alumni Anne Rebull and Carly Buxton

Please note special time and location: 12-2pm in Cobb 302

 

April 26-27

Panel on East Asian Literary Histories
With PhD students Emily Yoon, Nicholas Wong, and Brian White
Discussant: Professor Paola Iovene (EALC)
Please note special time and location: Walker Museum 302, 1115 E. 58th St, Chicago, IL 60637; coffee and light refreshments at 3:30PM and panel at 4PM.

 

May 10

Yiren Zheng (PhD Candidate, EALC)

Voices that Are Not Fully Human

Discussant: William Carroll (PhD Candidate, EALC)

Please note special location: EALC Seminar Room, Wieboldt Hall 301N, followed by a catered dinner

 

May 17

Alia Breitwieser (PhD Candidate, Comparative Literature)

The Topography of the Text: Rethinking Jin Shengtan’s Reading Methods (dufa 讀法)

Discussant: Yiying Pan (PhD Candidate, EALC)

 

May 24

Jun Hee Lee (PhD Candidate, History)

Kindling Healthful Singing Across Tokyo: Utagoe Cafe Tomoshibi’s Cultural Ventures, 1962-1984

 

May 25

Public Lecture on Translating Premodern Chinese Buddhist Texts: Five Ways of Reading Chinese Buddhist History

Professor John Kieschnick, Stanford University

Please note special time and location: 9AM-12PM, Cobb Hall 110, followed by a catered lunch

 

Susan Su

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Susan Su (PhD Candidate, EALC)

“Beyond Censorship: Language and Literary Networks in Tibetan-Language Online Literature Websites of the 2000s”

Discussant: Sabine Schulz (PhD Student, EALC)

Friday, March 8, 3-5PM

Location: CEAS 319 (1155 E 60th St)

 

On March 8th from 3:00pm to 5:00pm the Art and Politics of East Asia workshop will host Susan Su (PhD Candidate, EALC). She will present “Beyond Censorship: Language and Literary Networks in Tibetan-Language Online Literature Websites of the 2000s,” a conference article that will also become a chapter of her dissertation. Susan provides the following abstract:

In this paper, I ask how the diverse and shifting uses of Tibetan language on the website Chodme intersect with conceptions of ethnicity and culture in contemporary Tibetan cultural production to understand how websites and online networks ask us to reconceptualize the role of online media in producing and mediating Tibetan language and culture. I will first briefly summarize existing arguments on the relationship between language and media in the contemporary Tibetan cultural production before going on to analyze the Tibetan-language literature website Chodme with respect to its form and language and its role in fostering an online community.

Jiayi Chen

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Jiayi Chen (PhD Student, EALC)
“The Ghostly Dicing:
Representations of Gambling and Deception in Ming-Qing Short Stories”
Discussant: Yiren Zheng (PhD Candidate, EALC)
Friday, February 15, 3-5PM
Location: CEAS 319 (1155 E 60th St)
On February 15th from 3:00pm to 5:00pm the Art and Politics of East Asia workshop will host Jiayi Chen (PhD Student, EALC). She will present “The Ghostly Dicing: Representations of Gambling and Deception in Ming-Qing Short Stories.” Jiayi provides the following abstract:  

This paper examines the literary representations of gambling in three short stories written by Ling Mengchu 凌濛初 (1580-1644), Li Yu 李漁 (1611-1680), and Pu Songling 蒲松齡 (1640-1715). Rather than novels, it is short stories, both “classical tales” and “vernacular stories,” that offer these authors a possible site to well explore the topic of gambling during a time of anxiety when state laws tried to prohibit the activity in vain. This paper showcases that gambling is frequently figured as a deception in the late imperial literary imagination that is far more complicated than a narrative of mere moral didacticism. Supernatural creatures, be it ghosts or fox spirits, are introduced into the narrative to reverse the gambling’s outcomes or processes. A game largely relying on chance notwithstanding, under these authors’ literary “manipulation,” winning is equal to losing, and gambling is “degambled.” The aim of this paper is two-fold. On the one hand, by tracing the ways in which gambling is intertwined with assorted deceptions, this paper attempts to enrich our understanding of how the late Ming and early Qing short story authors perceive and manifest the complex interrelationship between human agency and forces beyond human control. On the other hand, by breaking the long-established dichotomy between “classical tales” and “vernacular stories” in the history of Chinese literature, it intends to investigate the shared narrative techniques which these authors use to invite readers to experience a gambling game of reading that is simultaneously predestined and unpredictable, ordinary and extraordinary, real and illusory.