The seminar is conducted in English with Cantonese supplementation.
Free Admission. Please RSVP by emailing chk.library@utoronto.ca
Synopsis:
Modern Chinese writer Eileen Chang started her literary career as a cultural critic publishing in English in the magazine The Twentieth Century in 1943 Shanghai. This talk focuses on three of her cultural criticisms “Chinese Life and Fashion,” “Still Alive” and “Demons and Fairies” to discuss how she views Chinese cultural heritage through fashion, religion and Peking opera. It holds that Chang’s works show a vision of history as practices in everyday life and convey a respect for cultural heritage and tradition. What her works show is, instead of a protest against tradition, a sadness for not being able to return to it. While portraying Chang as a literati reflecting on cultural heritage, this talk also reads Chang herself as a cultural heritage in modern Chinese literature and culture.
Speaker Bio:
Carole Hang-fung HOYAN 何杏楓 received her PhD. in Asian Studies from The University of British Columbia, Canada. She is currently Professor of the Department of Chinese Language and Literature, Director of the Yale-China Chinese Language Centre and Interim Director of the Centre for China Studies of The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include modern Chinese fiction and drama, Eileen Chang Studies, Hong Kong Literature. She is the author of two monographs, Re-investigating Eileen Chang: Adaptation, Translation and Research 《重探張愛玲 : 改編・翻譯・研究》and Re-visiting Modern Chinese Literature: Close Reading, Data and Reception 《重訪中國現代文學 : 細讀·數據·接受》. She is also co-editor and interviewer of An Oral History of Hong Kong Drama (1930s to 1960s) 《香港話劇口述史 : 三十年代至六十年代》. She is currently working on a research project entitled “A Study on The Commercial Press and the Aesthetic Education Movement in a Transcultural Context (1897-1940).” She has also published poems, proses, short stories, film and drama criticisms in Hong Kong Literature Monthly, Voice and Verse Poetry Magazine, among others.