Admin

Book Review: Translating China as Cross-Identity Performance by James St. Andre?

Book Review/V14N12022

555 views

Translating China as Cross-Identity Performance builds upon and departs from the 2010 book chapter in which some theoretical issues between translation and metaphor have been foregrounded. By developing the methodology initiated in the chapter, St. Andre? in the book further testifies it by applying it to the translation issues that surfaced in the historical Sino-Western interactions…

Publisher: University of Hawai‘i Press. Date of Publication: 2018. Language: English. ISBN: 9780824875305

Reviewed by

[wp-svg-icons icon=”user” wrap=”i”] Cao Qilin ^{[wp-svg-icons icon=”envelop” wrap=”i”]}

Department of English, University of Macau

Rupktha Journal, Vol. 14, Issue 1, January-March, 2022, Pages 1–3. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v14n1.20

Received: 5 Mar 2021 | Revised: 17 Mar 2021 | Accepted: 22 Oct 2021 | First Published: 5 February 2022

(This review is published under the Themed Issue Contemporary East and Southeast Asian Literary and Cultural Studies)
FULL-TEXT PDF CITE
Book Review: Translating China as Cross-Identity Performance by James St. Andre?

Ever since the renewal of interest in metaphors prevailed in the mid-20th century, related research has empowered metaphors to possess more theoretical implications rather than to function as mere linguistic representations. The following decades bear witness to how metaphors are integrated into contemporary academic discussions and what roles the metaphor theory, having been continuously practised and enriched, plays in dealing with cognitive, linguistic, and sociocultural issues. Relevant works of importance are not only limited to more classic ones, such as Metaphor and Thought (1979) edited by Andrew Ortony, Metaphors We Live By (1980) written by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, but also those more recently published, such as Stern Josef’s Metaphor in Context (2000), and Denis Donoghue’s Metaphor (2014). Given this academic context, St. Andre?’s Translating China as Cross-Identity Performance is another worthwhile attempt in venturing the frontier of metaphor theory by conceptualizing translation with metaphors, during which an academic model is set for employing metaphors to theorize a particular discipline and to investigate specific disciplinary cases.

James St. Andre? is the Chairman and Associate Professor of the Department of Translation at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research mainly focuses on the translations from Chinese into English and French between the 17th century and 20th century. His early contribution in combining translation with metaphors could be traced back to the 2010 book he edited entitled Thinking Through Translation with Metaphors. A variety of metaphors are adopted in this book to reconceptualize translation, and the chapter contributed by St. Andre?, titled “Translation as Cross-Identity Performance”, is tellingly the pilot study of the book that is the subject of this review.

Translating China as Cross-Identity Performance builds upon and departs from the 2010 book chapter in which some theoretical issues between translation and metaphor have been foregrounded. By developing the methodology initiated in the chapter, St. Andre? in the book further testifies it by applying it to the translation issues that surfaced in the historical Sino-Western interactions. A judicious thoroughness is carried out in elaborating the mythological taxonomy inspired by the typology of cross-identity metaphors, i.e., blackface, whiteface, passing, drag, mimicry, and masquerade. This taxonomy not only showcases another academic route to overcome the problem of theoretical compatibility between translation studies and gender studies but also unravels its pertinency and qualification to examine relevant Sino-Western translations between the 17th and 20th centuries.

This taxonomy also serves as the structure of the book by treating individual metaphors as a conceptual lens to chronologically look into relevant translations. The translations of St. Andre?’s enquiry are mostly those translated by Westerners before China and Western countries had large-scale interactions. Translations of this period did not serve to enhance communication, the function that translations commonly perform by following faithfully the source text; rather, they legitimized themselves by gloating over the suspicious achievements they made in overcoming the linguistic barriers and therefore enjoyed the plausible privilege to betray the rules of being faithful, inviting different forces to achieve varied goals of their concern. In this sense, as the connection between the source text and the target text has been largely disconnected, a new space is opened to metaphorize translations of this period as acts of changing identities. Under this observation, this book’s theoretical building and research scope are tightly tied up, and the content, as shown below, is appropriately situated.

In the book, the author begins his investigation with the 17th and 18^th century Oriental tales prevailing in the West by proving those tales as meaningful others to ridicule (blackface) or compliment (whiteface) the Western self. Oriental tales, in the name of translation, are thus argued to be the yardstick to which the Western countries were self-measured. In the second chapter, the earliest Western translations of The Sorrow of Han are considered as passing, through which the author argues that both the French and English translators employed Chinese characters and pronunciations to justify their translations as authentic against the reality that the demand for authentic translations was escalating. The next chapter moves to translation as drag, emphasizing the more radical alteration entailed by relevant translations. These translations are found to convey a kind of Chineseness to their Western readers, and this Chineseness, as St. Andre? argues, was accessorized and dragged by the Western conventional concepts about China. The next part of translation as mimicry unravels how the Western sinologists attempted to mimic the sight and sound of Chinese, during which the Chinese was plausibly more thoroughly perceived by the West in terms of linguistic differences. In the final part of thinking translation as masquerade, two Chinese translators, i.e., Gu Hongming and Lin Yutang, are argued to follow but also derail the Western conceptions about China to establish their own Chinese identity. Compared to the previous chapters, this chapter concentrates on the Oriental side which ponders anew the issues of how the Oriental translators could masquerade themselves for innovating Orientalness while conforming to the Western conventions.

As reviewed above, translation, as a practice of linguistic shifting, has been compared to behaviours of changing make-ups, costumes, and accessories in the field of gender and performance studies. The value of this comparison is not a mere similarity between linguistic shifting and appearance changing but the commensurability between these two practices of reconsidering relevant identity issues brought forth by the act of crossing. While in this book crossing undeniably refers to the linguistic switch from Chinese to Western languages, its underlying meanings are more closely related to the agents who enacted the behaviour of crossing and the contexts in which translations as cross-identity practices happened. The agents and contexts, as told by the book, were mostly Western; therefore, the emphasis of this book is on how China was conceptualized by the Western. In doing so, it elucidates not only how the discourse of China was developed in the West through translation, but also how the West projected Western values and purposes on translation to cater to the Western imagination of China as the other. In this sense, the novelty of this book is its embodiment of how the Oriental was more Orientalised and the Chinese became more Chinese in the Western perspective, and how the Western identity was constructed and reinforced through translations of Chinese texts, even though many parts in the translation were fabricated.

Conceptualizing translation as cross-identity performance does not confine its discussion at the linguistic level; instead, it attempts to metaphorize these linguistic features as performative techniques which impose great influences on identity-shaping. What matters in thinking translation as cross-identity performance is who initiates the performance under what contexts for what audience. This approach is more about the way translation functions in the target area for target readers, which neatly avoids some clichéd discussions resulting from the overwhelming concerns about the source text. But, meanwhile, the deficiency of this tendency is admittedly obvious. The way of emphasizing the target end and therefore including those texts which are not authentic translations but are accepted as translations would be easily trapped in the danger of diluting the nature of translation.

Overall, this book offers insights into the translation issues of translating China for the West and should be considered as a meaningful practice of integrating translation with metaphors and of moving both metaphor theory and translation studies further. Not only the practitioners of translation studies, but also the students interested in Chinese literature, language, and history are potential target readers of this book.

References

Donoghue, D. (2014). Metaphor. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: Harvard University Press.

Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. (2003). Metaphors We Live By. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.

Ortony, A. (ed.) (1979). Metaphor and Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

St. Andre?, J. (2018). Translating China as Cross-Identity Performance. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.

St. Andre?, J. (ed.) (2010). Thinking Through Translation with Metaphors. New York: Routledge.

Stern, J. (2000). Metaphor in Context. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Cao Qilin is currently a PhD student in the Department of English, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Macau. His research interests include translation studies, cultural studies, and intercultural studies.

Apostol’s Creed: Unveiling the Political Fictions of Colonialism and Nation in the Diasporic Novel

South East Asian Literature/Southeast Asia/V14N12022

465 views

[wp-svg-icons icon=”user” wrap=”i”] Marikit Tara Alto Uychoco ^{[wp-svg-icons icon=”envelop” wrap=”i”]}

Department of English and Comparative Literature, University of the Philippines Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines.

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 14, Issue 1, January-March, 2022, Pages 1–11. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v14n1.15

Abstract received: 8 Feb 2021 | Article received: 1 June 2021 | Revised: 12 August 2021 | Accepted: 6 Sept 2021 | First Published: 05 February 2022

(This article is published under the Themed Issue Contemporary East and Southeast Asian Literary and Cultural Studies)
FULL-TEXT PDF CITE
Apostol’s Creed: Unveiling the Political Fictions of Colonialism and Nation in the Diasporic Novel

Abstract

Gina Apostol is a Philippine-American writer whose novel, Insurrecto, gives important insights into the political fictions of colonialism and the nation-state. Using postmodern readings of metafiction and historiographic metafiction, as well as postcolonial readings of hybridity and postcolonial doubles, this paper will unearth the political fictions that were used by the United States in rationalizing the Philippine-American War, and the political fictions used by the Philippines in rationalizing extrajudicial killings. This paper follows the argumentation of Ania Loomba, who argues that nation-states have used the same violence as those used by colonizing powers, and that after the colonizing powers left, the nation-state excluded and silenced marginal peoples. Philippine-American Literature distinguishes itself against Asian-American Literature because it discusses the Philippine colonial experience under the U.S., lending itself to important reflections regarding hybridity, historiography, and solidarity. This paper will use the postmodern theories of Patricia Waugh when it comes to metafiction, Linda Hutcheon’s and Michel Foucault’s theories regarding historiographic metafiction and suprahistorical history, and the postcolonial theories of Homi Bhabha and Gloria Anzaldua regarding hybridity.

Keywords: Philippine-American Literature, Diasporic Literature, Metafiction, Historiographic Metafiction, Hybridity.

FULL-TEXT PDF CITE

Traversing Paths/Pasts: Places of Filipino Philosophy

South East Asian Literature/Southeast Asia

452 views

[wp-svg-icons icon=”user” wrap=”i”] Hazel T. Biana ^{[wp-svg-icons icon=”envelop” wrap=”i”]}

Department of Philosophy, De La Salle University, Manila, Philippines

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 14, Issue 1, January-March, 2022, Pages 1–13. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v14n1.08

Abstract received: 19 Feb 2021 | Complete article received: 3 June 2021 | Revised article received: 25 Aug 2021 | Accepted: 29 August 2021 | First Published: 05 February 2022

(This article is published under the Themed Issue Contemporary East and Southeast Asian Literary and Cultural Studies)
FULL-TEXT PDF CITE
Traversing Paths/Pasts: Places of Filipino Philosophy

Abstract

Place is a vital framework of human experience and is essential to the configuration of experience. It is more than the mere geography or arrangement of things in a particular spatial location. As a concept and not merely as a specific instance, place moulds human experience and contributes to the understanding of oneself and the world. Philosophers have long tackled the unravelling of these significant experiences, and the importance of theorizing about the place. As such, understanding philosophy also necessitates looking into its place. Regrettably, Filipino Philosophy has not yet been examined closely in this regard. To address this gap, this paper inquires about the development of Filipino Philosophy as it has been shaped by the places of its pioneers. It uncovers the connections between the development of Filipino thought and the places of Filipino philosophers who emerged in the 1970s-80s. By culling these philosophers’ paths/pasts, homage is paid to a significant resource often ignored, viz., the places of philosophy.

Keywords: Philosophy of Place, Filipino Philosophy, Travel, Philippines

Bagay: Articulating a New Materialism from the Philippine Tropics

South Asian Literature in English/South East Asian Literature

572 views

[wp-svg-icons icon=”user” wrap=”i”] Christian Jil R. Benitez ^{[wp-svg-icons icon=”envelop” wrap=”i”]}

Department of Filipino, Ateneo de Manila University, Quezon City, Philippines

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 14, Issue 1, January-March, 2022, Pages 1–11. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v14n1.07

Abstract received: 31 March 2021 | Complete article received: 30 May 2021 | Revised article received: 29 August 2021 | Accepted:30 August 2021 | First Published: 05 February 2022

(This article is published under the Themed Issue Contemporary East and Southeast Asian Literary and Cultural Studies)
FULL-TEXT PDF CITE
Bagay: Articulating a New Materialism from the Philippine Tropics

Abstract

Keeping in time with the new materialist turn that aspires to respond to the common disregard to matter in Euro-Western tradition of thought while at the same time insisting the imperative to decolonize such turn, this essay attempts to articulate a Philippine rendition of new materialism, through the notion of bagay, nominated here as a thing whose materiality is intuited to be appropriately determinable concerning a particular moment. This attempt is extended through turning to Bagay poetry, “a concept, a proposition” (Lumbera 2005, 136) from the 1960s toward a Philippine poetics that is most attuned to the concreteness of things, instead of simply overlooking them—a disregarding impulse that is primarily attributed to the “platitudinous and emotional tendencies” (“Bagay Poets” 1965, 24) in Philippine poetry at the time which considers things as mere metaphors, if not symbols for anthropocentric sentimentalizations. Through harnessing then an attentiveness on things encouraged by the Bagay poetics, the materiality of bagay is then sensed in its utmost tropicality, that is, its capacity to turn into whatever.

Keywords: New materialism, bagay, Philippine poetics, decolonization, tropicality

FULL-TEXT PDF CITE

The Poetics of Fei Ming: How the Classical Merged with the Modernist

East Asia/V14N12022

546 views

[wp-svg-icons icon=”user” wrap=”i”] Candy Fan Wang [wp-svg-icons icon=”envelop” wrap=”i”]

Foreign Languages College, Shanghai Normal University, China

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 14, Issue 1, January-March, 2022, Pages 1–11. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v14n1.02

Abstract received: 29 March 2021 | Complete article received: 8 June 2021 | Revised article received: 22 Sept 2021 | Accepted: 2 Dec 2021 | First Published: 05 February 2022Published: February 5, 202

(This article is published under the Themed Issue Contemporary East and Southeast Asian Literary and Cultural Studies)
FULL-TEXT PDF CITE
The Poetics of Fei Ming: How the Classical Merged with the Modernist

Abstract

Fei Ming (1901-1969) is an iconic fictionist who had mastered the fusion of Chinese classical literary images with Western modernist writing techniques, a glaring label overshadowing his accomplishments in poetry. This paper looks at Fei Ming’s footprint in poetry within the context of the reforming and modernizing process of Chinese poetry in the first half of the 20th century. It offers a particular angle of viewing Fei Ming’s undervalued poetic aesthetics, in which he seamlessly reconciled the confrontational forces vacillating the development of Chinese poetry, namely, traditional form versus modern form and Chinese style versus Western style. Specifically, he blended modern philosophy with traditional lyricism to create natural flows of beauty and imbedded the Western symbolist and imagist techniques in forming a unique Chinese poetry style without compromising the sense of coherence. His proposal that new poetry should embrace a poetic “mind” with a prose-like “body” has shaped the making of Chinese modern poetry in its time of need. His equal treatment of the poetic elements of Chinese tradition and Western modern manifests a new interpretation of modernist poetry, a different mentality to approach modernism, and further a distinct paradigm of global modernisms, alternative to the Anglo-American ones.

Keywords: Fei Ming, modern Chinese poetry, poetic theory, global modernisms.

FULL-TEXT PDF CITE

Rethinking, Narrating, Consuming Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asia

Editorial/South East Asian Literature/Southeast Asia

1.7K views

[wp-svg-icons icon=”user” wrap=”i”] Jeremy De Chavez ^{[wp-svg-icons icon=”envelop” wrap=”i”]}

Department of English, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Macau, Macau SAR, China.

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 14, Issue 1, January-March, 2022, Pages 1–3. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v14n1.01

Published: February 5, 202

(This editorial is published under the Themed Issue Contemporary East and Southeast Asian Literary and Cultural Studies)
FULL-TEXT PDF CITE
Rethinking, Narrating, Consuming Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asia

As this special issue would not have been possible without the generosity of certain individuals during these most trying times, this modest introduction must necessarily begin with gratitude. My co-editor, Yue Zhang, and I would like to express our sincerest thanks to the tireless and gracious people behind Rupkatha. It is because of their vision and efforts that Rupkatha has become a truly global journal of interdisciplinary Humanities, a home to many ideas that challenge and extend the borders of what it means to do Humanistic research in order to all the more properly respect its integrity. We hope that this special issue that features works from and about the East and Southeast Asian regions, along with their associated diasporic communities, will contribute to the noble vision of Rupkatha. We extend our gratitude to the numerous scholars who shared their expertise as peer-reviewers and whose generosity ensured the success of this special issue. We are also very grateful to our editorial assistants Mr. John, Fong Chi Chon and Mr. Chris, Miao Chi both of whom often went above and beyond the call of duty to ensure the smooth production of this special issue. Of course, we must also thank all those scholars, both established and up-and-coming, who responded to our call for submissions. The response to this special issue could only be described as overwhelmingly robust, which is indicative of the unquestionable vigor in the field of contemporary East and Southeast Asian literary and cultural studies. Indeed, the sheer diversity of the submissions makes it a challenge to collectively introduce the essays without the risk of taking away from their inevitable multiplicity by imposing an artificial thematic unity. Thus, while the concerns of the essays included in this issue cannot be fully contained within their assigned thematic categories, and by no means should be read exclusively within such, I shall nevertheless risk grouping them based on what I conceive to be their principal critical concern—that is to say, rethinking, narrating, consuming.

A substantial number of essays in this special issue have attempted to rethink concepts that have been ossified through convention by bringing them into contact with cultural texts from and about Southeast Asia, revitalizing both concept and cultural text in the process. Carlos Piocos’s “Women Trespassing Borders: Imaginaries of Cosmopolitanism from Below in Mia Alvar’s In the Country” interrogates dominant conceptions of cosmopolitanism by exploring “versions of cosmopolitanism from below” and in the process “examines the intersections and contradictions of class, gender and race in cosmopolitan imaginaries of mobilities in Southeast Asia.” Locating his theoretical intervention within the new materialist and decolonial turns, Christian Jil R. Benitez’s “Bagay: Articulating a new materialism from the Philippine tropics” examines Bagay poetry to “articulate a Philippine rendition of new materialism, through the notion of bagay” and its characteristic tropicality. Extending his previous work on Chinese Filipino culture, Joseph Ching Velasco’s “From Private Eye to Public “I”: The Chinese Filipinos in Charlson Ong’s Hard-Boiled Fiction” examines how a generic literary form is strategically disfigured when relocated in the postcolony so that it may speak to post-colonial and diasporic concerns. Hazel T. Biana’s “Traversing Paths/Pasts: Places of Filipino Philosophy” focuses on the concept of place in the work of selected Filipino philosophers to argue that place reveals “the trajectories of their type of philosophizing“ and thus played a significant role in the development of Filipino philosophy. Anton Sutandio’s “Skinned Performance: Female Body Horror in Joko Anwar’s Impetigore” examines the ambivalent status of the female body in cinema to argue that “the portrayal of non-traditional female characters suggests an attempt to challenge the mainstream patriarchal narrative in contemporary Indonesian horror cinema, and at the same time hints at the perpetuating subjectification of woman’s bodies.” Also focused on the representation of the body in cinema is Lynda Susana Widya Fatmawaty et al.’s “The Politics of Gendered Subjects in Indonesian Post-Reform Films.”

Some essays in this issue are critical inquiries into processes of narrating the nation, which as Homi Bhabha astutely observes, is a process that “does not merely draw attention to its language and rhetoric…but also…attempts to alter the conceptual object itself” (p. 18). Kavitha Ganesan’s “Which tongue? The Imported Colonial Standard or Motherland Vernacular? Exploring “Death” as the Birth of Postcolonial Malaysia in Muthammal Palanisamy’s Funeral Chant” examines two versions of a funeral chant (written in English and Tamil) to elaborate on how death functions as a “metaphor to the birth of the nation” with the aim of demonstrating how a form of narrative in-betweeness that emerges out of the process of translation becomes a way within which a “diasporic Indian’s ‘becoming’ national identity is reconstructed.” Louie Jon A. Sánchez’s “The Teleserye Story: Three Periods of the Evolution of the Filipino TV Soap Opera” posits that the teleserye (Philippine TV soap opera) is a cultural form that is “reflective of the country’s life and times, its evolution interconnected with the ebb and flow of Philippine history.” Niccolo Rocamora Vitug’s “Pop Song Translations by Rolando Tinio as Script and Subversion of the Marcos Regime” examines the arguably ambivalent and complicated politics of a Philippine National Artist by paying attention to his song translations. Jie Zeng and Tian Yang’s “English in the Philippines from the Perspective of Linguistic Imperialism” examines the advantages and disadvantages of the continued dominance of the colonial language in the Philippines. Marikit Tara Alto Uychoco’s “Apostol’s Creed: Unveiling the Political Fictions of Colonialism and Nation in the Diasporic Novel” revisits the tension between postcolonial studies and postmodern theory and attempts to locate global critique in a contemporary metafictional novel.

There are also essays included in this collection that are concerned with how markets impact cultural production, reception, and consumption. Maria Gabriela P. Martin’s “Autopoetics, Market Competence, and the Transnational Author” participate in what has seemingly become its scholarly genre: the critique of postcolonial studies. Her essay examines how “program fiction” standardizes texts marketed as postcolonial, a process that speaks to the “auratic authority of postcolonial studies in the First world literary marketplace.” Io Chun Kong’s “Revisiting theatre of the minoritarian in neoliberalism: The Embodied Memories in Denise Uyehara’s and Dan Kwong’s Auto-performances” examines how minoritarian artists negotiate to work in a neoliberal environment. Kong examines auto-performances not merely as forms of individual aesthetic expression but as a politics of multiculturalism.

We hope that the works included in this special issue become an invaluable and generative resource to scholars working in the field. The final words of gratitude must then be offered to the readers of Rupkatha for their dependably gracious gift of attention. Thank you.

References

Bhabha, H. (1990). “Introduction: Narrating the Nation,” Nation and Narration. London and NY:

Routledge. 14-30.

Jeremy De Chavez is Assistant Professor of Literatures in English in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Macau, Macau SAR, China.

Introduction to Antiquarian Chinese Book Collections in Contemporary Macao

East Asia/V14N12022

414 views

[wp-svg-icons icon=”user” wrap=”i”] Chon Chit TANG ^{[wp-svg-icons icon=”envelop” wrap=”i”]}

University of Macau, China.

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 14, Issue 1, January-March, 2022, Pages 1–5. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v14n1.06

Abstract received: 31 March 2021 | Complete article received: 6 June 2021 | Accepted: 30 August 2021 | First Published: 05 February 2022

(This article is published under the Themed Issue Contemporary East and Southeast Asian Literary and Cultural Studies)
FULL-TEXT PDF CITE
Introduction to Antiquarian Chinese Book Collections in Contemporary Macao

Abstract

This essay briefly discusses the historical development of the society of Macao, the book collection systems and categories adopted within Macao, major characteristics of antiquarian Chinese books in Macao, and their relationship with the culture of Macao.

Keywords: antiquarian Chinese book collections, social culture, Macao

Translingual, Transcultural, and Transboundary Sceneries: Aesthetic Ideas and Discursive Practice in Yu Dafu’s Landscape Writing

East Asia/V14N12022

526 views

[wp-svg-icons icon=”user” wrap=”i”] Yidan Wang ^{[wp-svg-icons icon=”envelop” wrap=”i”]}

Duke University

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 14, Issue 1, January-March, 2022, Pages 1–17. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v14n1.05

Abstract received: 31 March 2021 | Complete article received: 2 June 2021 | Revised article received: 5 Dec 2021 | Accepted: 16 Dec 2021 | First Published: 05 February 2022

(This article is published under the Themed Issue Contemporary East and Southeast Asian Literary and Cultural Studies)
FULL-TEXT PDF CITE
Translingual, Transcultural, and Transboundary Sceneries: Aesthetic Ideas and Discursive Practice in Yu Dafu’s Landscape Writing

Abstract

The ways in which nature is watched and represented have changed rapidly alongside modernization in 20th-century China. This can be regarded as the product of an epistemological transformation led by the encounter of Chinese and Western cultures. One of the representatives in this transformation and fusion of seeing is Yu Dafu, who, although generally known for his fiction, penned many travel writings and descriptions of nature in the 1930s. Regarding Yu’s travelogue as an embodiment of his translingual and transcultural reflections, this paper reviews previous studies on Yu’s travelogue and investigates its latent creativity and antinomy. This article delves into the stylistic and aesthetic features of Yu’s travelogue to uncover the conservatism and misogyny obscured beneath the seemingly value-neutral landscapes, arguing that Yu’s travelogue is a twofold amalgamation of genres and aesthetics. On the one hand, his travel writing is an adaption and combination of the German Baedeker guidebooks and traditional Chinese travel notes (Youji ??). On the other hand, Yu’s texts incorporate aesthetic criteria influenced by different natural concepts, demonstrating both his broad vision ahead of time and his conservatism. Yu’s writing on nature and landscapes, as a discursive practice motivated by the emergence of tourism in his era, is a transboundary dialogue between literature and commerce, and the elite and the general public, while also implicitly denying the common people access to the scenery space. Through a close reading of Yu’s frequently employed tropes—picturesque and feminized scenes—I establish an isomorphic relationship between his views on nature, art, and female. Finally, the antinomy inherent in Yu’s landscape imaginary constructed by creativity and conservatism points to the ambiguity of the New Culture.

Keywords: modern Chinese literature, landscape, space, travel writing, cross-cultural communication.

FULL-TEXT PDF CITE

Foreignized Translation of Onomatopoeia in The Last Lover

East Asia/V14N12022

521 views

[wp-svg-icons icon=”users” wrap=”i”] Minhui Xu ^{[wp-svg-icons icon=”envelop” wrap=”i”]}& Tingting Chen

Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Macau, China.

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 14, Issue 1, January-March, 2022, Pages 1–12. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v14n1.04

Abstract received: 3 March 2021 | Complete article received: 19 June 2021 | Revised article received: 1 Sept 2021 | Accepted: 9 Sept 2021 | First Published: 05 February 2022

(This article is published under the Themed Issue Contemporary East and Southeast Asian Literary and Cultural Studies)
FULL-TEXT PDF CITE
Foreignized Translation of Onomatopoeia in The Last Lover

Abstract

The onomatopoeia in literary works frequently provokes translation problems and no consensus has been reached by translators. This study aims to explore the translation of onomatopoeia between Chinese and English, two drastically different languages, with a case of the translation of Can Xue’s novel The Last Lover by Annelise Finegan Wasmoen. A detailed textual analysis has detected three major translation strategies: italicized transliteration, italicized transliteration plus target equivalents, and italicized transliteration plus explanation, with the second one occupying a lion’s share. All the strategies demonstrate obvious efforts of foreignizing the translated onomatopoeia and produce a strengthened foreign effect. The facts that The Last Lover won the Best Translated Book in 2015 and that the statistics suggest a positive readers’ response show that onomatopoeia, non-arbitrary across languages, has its potential to be transferred successfully between languages and cultures. A foreignizing translation strategy makes it possible for the sound effects of the onomatopoeia of the original to be preserved and for the target readers to experience something foreign, while its acceptance suggests the increased tolerance for translated literary works in the target system.

Keywords: Translation of onomatopoeia, Can Xue, Foreignization.

ULL-TEXT PDF CITE

Precarity and Performativity in Post-Fordist Japanese Workplace: A Reading of Sayaka Murata’s Convenience Store Woman

East Asia/V14N12022

869 views

[wp-svg-icons icon=”user” wrap=”i”] Jaseel P ^{[wp-svg-icons icon=”envelop” wrap=”i”]}& Rashmi Gaur

Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Uttarakhand, India.

Rupkatha Journal, Vol. 14, Issue 1, January-March, 2022, Pages 1–11. https://doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v14n1.03

Abstract received: 31 March 2021 | Complete article received: 2 June 2021 | Revised article received: 5 Dec 2021 | Accepted: 16 Dec 2021 | First Published: 05 February 2022

(This article is published under the Themed Issue Contemporary East and Southeast Asian Literary and Cultural Studies)
FULL-TEXT PDF CITE
Precarity and Performativity in Post-Fordist Japanese Workplace: A Reading of Sayaka Murata’s Convenience Store Woman

Abstract

The socio-economic phenomenon of post-Fordism strengthened the growing Japanese economy since the 1970s. However, the economic recession in the 1990s led to the birth of the precariat in Japan. A country known for permanent employment and long-term stability was replaced by policies that enabled a new class of temporary workers. These vulnerable part-time employees, also called freeters, are victims of anxiety and social pressure. They led a life of insecurity and hopelessness. This ontological vulnerability prevalent in modern workplaces has profound repercussions on gender relations and identity formation and attempts to resist and expose these hegemonic powers shape the central theme in Sayaka Murata’s deadpan comedy Convenience Store Woman (2018). The protagonist Keiko, a freeter herself, struggles to live up to the societal expectations of marriage, motherhood, and a stable career. The workspace, which the protagonist of the novel considers as her safest place despite being a forcibly normalised environment, could not hold its illusion of stability for long as it becomes a precarious space of crisis. Precarity experienced under post-Fordist capitalism forces institutionalised forms of recognition where the performances of identities are regulated and constructed to ensure survival. The textuality of the workspace in the novel parallels the world outside of it, making the convenience store a microcosm for the capitalist world after globalisation. With Judith Butler’s studies on gender performativity and precariousness, and textual analysis of the novel, the authors of this paper study how anxiety-ridden precarious living conditions can also become a foundation for alternative performances troubling gender categories, thereby transcending the narrow social scripts rooted in exclusion and inequality.

Keywords: Precariousness, Gender Performativity, Japan, Post-Fordist Capitalism, Resistance.

FULL-TEXT PDF CITE

Cookie	Duration	Description
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional	11 months	The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy	11 months	The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.

You might be interested in

You might be interested in

You might be interested in

You might be interested in

You might be interested in