EACS-2016. Book of Abstracts

Section 4 21st Biennial Conference of the European Association for Chinese Studies 57 recently wrote poems like “Allied to Occupy Abandoned Buildings” in which she extolls anarchistic acts, using an intentionally unadorned language. What brought about this new trend? The gradual disintegration of governmentality under President Ma Yingjiu was probably one of the main reasons. Under his weak lead- ership, coupled with a policy of détente with PRC often caricaturized as overzealous, the society seems to have lost its sense of direction and has been trying desperately to rechart its course. The change in the tone and subject matter of contemporary Taiwan poetry seems to have put an end to the persisting postmodern trends and forebode an uncertain future which the poets are yet to map. Ma Xiaolu (Harvard University) From Nigilisty to Xuwudang: The Transculturation of Russian Nihilism in East Asia Key words: Russian Nihilism, China, Japan, Russia, transculturation, translation Russian Nihilism is recognized as one of the most important literary motifs adopted by Chinese writers in the process of Russo-Chinese literary interactions in the late 19th and early 20th century. However, most of the analysis on this motif focuses on the depiction of female assassins and the awakening of the female in China in the late Qing dynasty; yet to date no scholar has examined the distortions and transformations in the use of this Russian motif in Chinese literature. Drawing on historical factors of the transculturation of Russian nihilism in East Asia, my presentation reveals how under the influence of Japanese media and literature the depiction of Russian nihilism in Chinese literature deviated from that in Russian literature. The Chinese intellectuals not only directly adopted the Japanese translation of nihilism, they also embraced the Japanese interpretation about the historical events associated with Russian nihilism. As a result, the motif of nihilism in China was assimilated into the motif of assassination. By closely examining the intermediary role of Japan in the process of transculturation of Russian nihilism in China, my presentation attempts to search for the reason behind the passion of the Chinese intellectuals in appropriating the motif of Russian nihilism in the late Qing dynasty. Nadel Ira (University of British Columbia) Oriental Bloomsbury Key words: Bloomsbury Group, the Orient, Virginia Woolf, art, translation How did Bloomsbury respond to the Orient, and the Orient to Bloomsbury? This essay will explore the reciprocal exchange between the two worlds, the former expressed in cultural and literary style, the latter via the presence of Bloomsbury writers in China. The Orient was in the air in the first two decades of the 20th century and Bloomsbury, as well as the modernists, inhaled: Roger Fry’s essays on Chinese art appeared in 1910 soon followed by Pound’s Cathay (1915) and then his “translation” of Fenollosa’s Chi- nese Written Character. G.L. Dickinson visited China in 1913/14 and Arthur Waley’s translations of The Tale of Genji — reviewed by Virginia Woolf — appeared in 1925. Oriental art also began to be exhibited regularly at the British Museum promoted by Laurence Binyon, Keeper of Oriental Prints and Drawings. By the mid-1930s, Julian Bell, Virginia Woolf’s nephew (and Vanessa Bell’s son) started to teach Bloomsbury writers at Wuhan University. The Orient not only surrounded the Bloomsbury Group but infused its art and culture as this presentation will highlight. Conversely, Bloomsbury’s presence in China had, itself, an influence on the work of various Chinese artists and writers several of whom subsequently visited England. Inheriting 18th and 19th century traditions of the Orient, including a the fascination with Japonisme, demonstrated by the Pagoda at Kew Gardens or the craze for Oriental silk, Bloomsbury soon incorporated the Orient into its décor, dress and writing. Figures as diverse as Lytton Strachey, Roger Fry, J.M. Keynes and Virginia Woolf drew on the tradition. The French Orientalism of Proust, admired by Roger Fry, was one line of transmission. The argument of this paper is that an Oriental exchange to and from Bloomsbury permeated the literary, artistic and even decorative style of the Bloomsbury and contributed to the making of modernism.