EACS-2016. Book of Abstracts

Section 21 21st Biennial Conference of the European Association for Chinese Studies 229 Jaguscik Justyna (University of Zurich) Cosmopolitan and Vernacular Legacies in Zhai Yongming’s Poetry Key words: Zhai Yongming; women’s poetry; women’s history; gender; memory The contemporary avant-garde poet Zhai Yongming 翟永明 (b. 1955) has significantly contributed to the establishment of the discourse of women’s poetry in Mainland China. Since the late 1980s Zhai has also been actively shaping a feminist-minded literary scene. She is the most senior and prominent member of a community of female poets, writers and artists connected to the unofficial online journal Yi 翼 (Wings), which is dedicated to creative and academic women’s writing from China and beyond. In close cooperation with other editors of the journal, Zhai has helped to create this important virtual space for expression and discussion of feminist and feminine sensibilities in art and literature. Zhai who lives in Chengdu, spent several years abroad. As her international reputation has grown, she has travelled widely to participate in literary gathering. Many of her works touch on her extended stays abroad. My paper focuses on Zhai Yongming’s unceasing interest in global and local archives of women’s creativity, which has manifested itself throughout the years in visual arts and literature. Since the 1990s, Zhai has discussed numerous female writers and artists in her poetry and essays. With her writings she has been repeatedly pointing to subversive and trans- gressive forces hidden within the feminine margins of official history writing. Many of her texts thematize the lack of a suitable academic or literary language in which these “her-stories” from different times and places could be represented on their own terms. Consequently, Zhai regards it as her responsibility as a poet to revisit female-authored texts and works of art, which either have been obscured by male-centered linguistic traditions or have been forgotten. Zhai advances her critical project of establishing an alternative feminine genealogy of aesthetics to which sinophone female artists and writers can refer to in their creative endeavors, by tapping vernacular and trans-local cultural memories. Jankowski Lyce (University of Oxford) Era Name and Power Regalia on Song Coinage Key words: Song dynasty, coinage, marks of imperial power, nianhao, guohao Inscriptions on coins are often chosen by rulers to broadcast a political statement. China is no exception. Coins produced during the two Song dynasties usually bear the nianhao or era name. On some occasions, the emperors preferred though to adopt a guohao or dynastic name on their coinage. Does it have to be understood as a political or linguistic choice? One may also notice that all the nianhao were not illustrated on coins. The dynasty stands out by the number of nianhao chosen by the different emperors. The nine emperors of the Northern Song had 35 different nianhao (28 of them were used on coins), while those nine of the Southern dynasty used 21 nianhao, (17 of them are on coins). This paper explores the absence of certain of these nianhao by referring to historical, linguistic or political elements and will address the political message involved in the choice of an inscription on coinage. Kraushaar Frank (University of Latvia) After the Battle: Reading Modern and ContemporaryWenyan-poetry in 21st Century Key words: wenyan-poetry, Nie Gannu, Lizilizilizi, internet-poetry, memory, alternative history of modern poetry In an essay published 2009, Xiaofei Tian proposes an “alternative history of modern Chinese poetry” by dismanteling the conventional 20th century ideological bulwark against the looming monument of tra- ditional poetry in wenyan-style. In her words “perhaps the imagined contestation between ‘old’ and ‘new’ also needs to be revisited, as the temporal distance from the vested interests and heated debates in the early part of the twentieth century no longer have to get in the way of a more clear-headed perspective.” (Tian, 2009: 7) In fact, contemporary Western literary criticism still has a problem with recognizing the