East Asian Studies Lecture Series
"Linguistic Imperialism and the Aporia of Silence in 'Artists of the Peninsula' and Spring on the Peninsula" by Dr. Christina Yi
Date: Thursday, October 17, 2019
Time: 5:00 - 6:30p.m.
Location: 3-58 Pembina Hall
Dr. Christina Yi, Assistant Professor of Modern Japanese Literature at the University of British Columbia, will be presenting the following talk in the East Asian Studies Lecture Series, with the generous support of the China Institute and the Prince Takamado Japan Centre.
Abstract:
With the launch of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, Japan's colonies saw the full-scale launch of kōminka (imperialization) policies designed to turn the colonized into loyal subjects of the emperor. This presentation explores the central role kokugo (national language) ideology played in the articulation and promotion of imperial identity during the latter years of Japan's colonial rule, exploring how and why "Korean" literature was repositioned within a larger Japanese language canon. Although it is often understood that the kōminka movement introduced a new paradigm of the "imperial subject," who might be included in this category varied according to class, gender, ethnicity, and place. This presentation will elaborate on this point through a close comparative analysis of Kim Sŏngmin's 1936 novella Hantō no geijutsukatachi (Artists of the Peninsula) and its 1941 film adaptation Hantō no haru (Spring on the Peninsula; dir. Yi Pyŏng-il).
Speaker information:
Christina Yi is Assistant Professor of Modern Japanese Literature at the University of British Columbia. She is a specialist of modern Japanese-language literature and culture, with a particular focus on issues of postcoloniality, language ideology, genre, and cultural studies. Her first monograph, Colonizing Language: Cultural Production and Language Politics in Modern Japan and Korea, was published by Columbia University Press in 2018. She was also the co-editor for a special feature on zainichi (resident) Korean literature and film for Azalea: Journal of Korean Literature and Culture 12 (2019).
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"The Black Velvet Aesthetic: Universal Cultural Feminism and Chinese Neotraditionalism in Huang Shuqin's Woman Demon Human (1987)" by Dr. Lingzhen Wang
Date: Monday, October 28, 2019
Time: 4:00-5:30 p.m.
Location: 1-140 Centennial Centre for Interdisciplinary Science (CCIS)
Dr. Lingzhen Wang, Professor in the Department of East Asian Studies at Brown University, will be presenting the following talk in the East Asian Studies Lecture Series, with the generous support of the China Institute, the Department of Women's and Gender Studies, and the Department of English and Film Studies.
Abstract:
Post-Mao Chinese feminist film scholars had bemoaned the lack of feminist or female films in the history of Chinese cinema until 1987, when Huang Shuqin's Woman Demon Human was released. The film has since received critical acclaim, considered by many as "the highest achievement of Chinese women's cinema," "full of female consciousness," and "the only feminist/female film in Chinese film history." What does it mean to designate Woman Demon Human as the first or only feminist/female film in Chinese history? What kind of female consciousness does the film articulate? And what is the film's relationship to the influence of Western post-Second Wave feminism, the rise of a masculine mode of cultural reflection, and the return of traditional values in the late 1980s when China moved steadily to a market economy? This talk explores these questions and offers a revisionist analysis of the film by particularly examining, among other things, the film's essentialist (xieyi) aesthetic.
Speaker information:
Lingzhen Wang is a Professor in the Department of East Asian Studies at Brown University, specializing in modern Chinese literature and film, critical theory, and transnational feminist and media studies. She is the author of Personal Matters: Women's Autobiographical Practice in Twentieth Century China (Stanford UP, 2004) and Revisiting Integrated Socialist Feminist Practice: History, Geopolitics, and Mainstream Women's Cinema in Modern China 1949-1987 (forthcoming from Duke UP).
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"Social, Cultural, and Linguistic Dimensions of Creative Language Use in China's Internet and New Media" by Dr. Hongyin Tao
Date: Thursday October 31, 2019
Time: 5:00-6:20 p.m.
Location: 239 Central Academic Building (CAB)
Dr. Hongyin Tao, professor of Chinese language and linguistics and applied linguistics at UCLA, will be presenting the following talk in the East Asian Studies Lecture Series, with the generous support of the China Institute and the Prince Takamado Japan Centre for Teaching and Research.
Abstract:
Creative language use in the forms of neologism, borrowing, substitution, pun, script manipulation, genre innovation, and so forth in contemporary China shapes and reflects sociopolitical development in an increasingly globalized Chinese society and with a linguistic and cultural favor that is distinctively Chinese. This talk details some of the creative language use patterns and explains why they can be viewed as the direct result of the interplay of globalization, identity negotiation, as well as political struggle, among other factors.
Speaker information:
Hongyin Tao is a professor of Chinese language and linguistics and applied linguistics at UCLA. His research and teaching focus on the social, cultural, and interactional aspects of Chinese language use in context. His recent books include Chinese for Specific/Professional Purposes (Springer, 2019) and Integrating Linguistic Research with Chinese Language Teaching and Learning (John Benjamins, 2016).