Poetics and Justice in America, Japan, and Taiwan

Poetics and Justice in America, Japan, and Taiwan
Author: Dean Anthony Brink
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2021-06-28
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1793627916

Poetics and Justice in America, Japan, and Taiwan shows how entitlements are implicated in all areas of life—human and nonhuman—that poetry reaches. Through a creative adaptation of Badiou’s philosophical framing, this book argues that poetry matters as a form of media particularly suited to integrating diverse fields of knowledge and attention in newspapers, Tweets, and performance as well as volumes of poetry. Recasting intertextuality as more relational than referential, the author argues for the importance of poetry in realizing how social change and ecological justice are bound up in our orientations of affiliation. Each chapter focuses on particular sets of problems engaged by poets in different contexts to various ends in Japan, the US, and Taiwan. Some chapters explore the subtle implications of openly provocative styles, while others question the muted poetic intimations of injustices that are left standing unchanged in the name of aesthetics. Poets and performance artists featured include Amiri Baraka, John Ashbery, Tawara Machi, Rodrigo Toscano, Hung Hung, and John Cage. The author argues for examining poetic expressions in terms of what discursive fusions and affiliations they embody beyond the intimation of good intentions or ironic passing over.

Poetry and the Global Climate Crisis

Poetry and the Global Climate Crisis
Author: Amatoritsero Ede
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 343
Release: 2023-12-11
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1000998479

This book demonstrates how humans can become sensitized to, and intervene in, environmental degradation by writing, reading, analyzing, and teaching poetry. It offers both theoretical and practice-based essays, providing a diversity of approaches and voices that will be useful in the classroom and beyond. The chapters in this edited collection explore how poetry can make readers climate-ready and climate-responsive through creativity, empathy, and empowerment. The book encompasses work from or about Oceania, Africa, Europe, North America, Asia, and Antarctica, integrating poetry into discussions of specific local and global issues, including the value of Indigenous responses to climate change; the dynamics of climate migration; the shifting boundaries between the human and more-than-human world; the ecopoetics of the prison-industrial complex; and the ongoing environmental effects of colonialism, racism, and sexism. With numerous examples of how poetry reading, teaching, and learning can enhance or modify mindsets, the book focuses on offering creative, practical approaches and tools that educators can implement into their teaching and equipping them with the theoretical knowledge to support these. This volume will appeal to educational professionals engaged in teaching environmental, sustainability, and development topics, particularly from a humanities-led perspective.

Imagining Sisterhood in Modern Chinese Texts, 1890–1937

Imagining Sisterhood in Modern Chinese Texts, 1890–1937
Author: Yun Zhu
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 237
Release: 2017-03-16
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1498536301

This book investigates sisterhood as a converging thread that wove female subjectivities and intersubjectivities into a larger narrative of Chinese modernity embedded in a newly conceived global context. It focuses on the period between the late Qing reform era around the turn of the twentieth century and the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, which saw the emergence of new ways of depicting Chinese womanhood in various kinds of media. In a critical hermeneutic approach, Zhu combines an examination of an outside perspective (how narratives and images about sisterhood were mobilized to shape new identities and imaginations) with that of an inside perspective (how subjects saw themselves as embedded in or affected by the discourse and how they negotiated such experiences within texts or through writing). With its working definition of sisterhood covering biological as well as all kinds of symbolic and metaphysical connotations, this book exams the literary and cultural representations of this elastic notion with attention to, on the one hand, a supposedly collective identity shared by all modern Chinese female subjects and, on the other hand, the contesting modes of womanhood that were introduced through the juxtaposition of divergent “sisters.” Through an interdisciplinary approach that brings together historical materials, literary and cultural analysis, and theoretical questions, Zhu conducts a careful examination of how new identities, subjectivities and sentiments were negotiated and mediated through the hermeneutic circuits around “sisterhood.”

Classical Chinese Poetry in Singapore

Classical Chinese Poetry in Singapore
Author: Bing Wang
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 203
Release: 2017-11-22
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 149853516X

As the essence of Chinese traditional culture, classical Chinese poetry in Singapore played a very important role in the social and cultural development of Singapore’s Chinese community. Numerous poems depicted the unique scenery of tropical rainforest and the customs with a Nanyang flavor, recorded the various historical events from the colonial era, the World War II to the independent nation, and reflected the poets’ multiple feelings. This book sketches out the brief history of classical Chinese poetry in Singapore over a hundred years, and focuses on the complex identity of poets from different generations, the function of literary societies in the construction of cultural space and the influence of modern media on the development of classical Chinese poetry based on the text interpretation. In addition, the author attempts to define different types of poetry writing using diaspora literature and Sinophone literature. The discussion of these topics will not only expand the research horizon of Chinese literature, but also provide a meaningful reference to the studies of the worldwide Chinese overseas, especially in Southeast Asia.

The Hong Kong Modernism of Leung Ping-kwan

The Hong Kong Modernism of Leung Ping-kwan
Author: C. T. Au
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 217
Release: 2019-11-29
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1793609381

This book resolves around the fundamental question, “What is Hong Kong modernism?” To address this issue, C.T. Au identifies three significant characteristics: a renewal of traditions, an obsession with ordinary things, and an expression of concerns about social and political issues, shared among Western modernisms, Chinese modernism in the 1940s, and such Hong Kong modernists as Ma Lang, Liu Yichang, and Leung Ping-kwan (Yasi/Ye Si). This research concentrates on an examination of the major modernist tenets embodied in Leung’s literary works. Leung Ping-kwan is one of the most prominent and widely read Hong Kong modernist writers; however, there exist only a few scholarly works which focus on the direct relationship between Leung’s works and modernisms. The author argues that Leung paid special attention to issues regarding tradition, daily life, and colonial culture in order to understand his past, his identity, and the unique features of Hong Kong modernism, which celebrate multiple perspectives and inclusiveness. This study not only helps differentiate Hong Kong modernism from other modernisms—positioning the former as a variant of the latter—but also provides a response to the problems evoked by Hong Kong’s colonial milieu.

A Study of Literary Trends in China Since the 1980s

A Study of Literary Trends in China Since the 1980s
Author: Teresa Chi-Ching Sun
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 87
Release: 2019-03-27
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0761871098

This book intends to trace the revival of traditional literary works since the 1980s in China as it is revealed on the revitalized College Entrance Examination (CEE). In order to show how these changes reflect China’s altering ideology after the fall of Communism, selections from the CEE’s literary portion will be examined. Taking advantage of the resurrection of the powerful CEE, test creators have composed the literary portion as an education tool to shape public opinion in the post-Communist era. Literature in China have never been an independent art but had shared the responsibility for transmitting China’s intellectual and ethical traditions. The introduction of Communism to China silenced these traditions and made literature the servant of political ideology. This book traces the chronological process of restoring modern vernacular literature from the pre-Communist era and the ways in which traditional literature is being used for modern purposes. For many Chinese intellectuals, the gradual withdrawal of literature for serving political causes and the reinstatement of classical literature and early vernacular works to on the CEE bring to light the recovery of the aesthetic literary tradition and a return to normalcy. When students take the CEE, they not only mentally scrutinize literature that they first read during their secondary education, but also experience an assertive presentation of current Chinese cultural values and outlooks on life. This study argues that in the post-1980s CEE literary selections, students experience a variety of texts that summon up China’s pre-Communist literary tradition in order to serve as an intellectual guiding light for future social development. For those interested in comparative higher education, a particular area of interest may be the book’s singular consideration of the science and technology passages in connection with the restructuring of higher education in China as a remedy of China’s cultural tradition.

Taiwan Literature: English Translation Series, No. 47

Taiwan Literature: English Translation Series, No. 47
Author:
Publisher: 國立臺灣大學出版中心
Total Pages: 164
Release: 2021-05-01
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 9863504459

Apart from “new poetry” composed in the vernacular language, the tradition of classical poetry originating in China has also been maintained in Taiwan. We cannot ignore the fact that those poets who continued to compose classical verse, as well as the activities of their poetry societies, are yet another aspect of the diversity of Chinese-language poetic development in Taiwan which at the same time has unique local characteristics. Professor Huang's organization of the issue includes an introductory essay, entitled “Poems that Speak of Taiwan—Speaking of Taiwan Poetry” in which she gives a brief summary of the historical background and special character of the development of classical poetry in Taiwan. According to her careful plan, Professor Huang divided the poems translated for this special edition into six thematic sections: 1) Taiwan and Taiwanese in the Interstices of History (6 poems) 2) Crossing the Ocean to Taiwan, Putting Down Roots that Grow Along with Chinese Culture (5 poems) 3) Poems on the Aesthetics of Natural Landscape Scenery (6 poems) 4) Climate, Natural Resources, and Food (6 poems) 5) Folk Customs, Festivals, and Sacrificial Ceremony (4 poems) 6) Poems Expressing Emotions, Sentiments and Criticisms (7 poems) In the poetry selected for this issue we see the rich, expansive content of classical Chinese verse from Taiwan. That verse manifests the responses of Taiwanese poets to their times, to nature, to places and to people. It also reflects the many faces of Taiwan's specific temporal and geographical background through depictions of local experiences and the local spirit. 台灣詩歌的發展,除了以白話文創作的新詩之外,還有繼承中國古典詩歌傳統、延續不絕的古典詩歌創作者及其詩社活動,呈現出台灣漢詩發展的多樣性,同時又有其在地特色。 在黃美娥教授的策劃下,這一專輯的內容,除了詩選以外,本輯還有特地請黃教授撰寫一篇導論〈詩說台灣.說台灣詩〉,簡述台灣古典詩發展的歷史背景和主要特色。另一篇是黃教授撰寫的學術論文,〈實踐與轉化:日治時代臺灣傳統詩社的現代性體驗〉(摘譯)。關於詩選,共選31家,34首,根據題材,分成6個主題,以呈現台灣古典漢詩的特色。在題材上,反映社會和生活的開闊性和呼應歷史和時代的現代性。

Ecocriticism in Taiwan

Ecocriticism in Taiwan
Author: Chia-ju Chang
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2016-06-01
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1498538282

Ecocriticism is a mode of interdisciplinary critical inquiry into the relationship between cultural production, society, and the environment. The field advocates for the more-than-human realm as well as for underprivileged human and non-human groups and their perspectives. Taiwan is one of the earliest centers for promoting ecocriticism outside the West and has continued to play a central role in shaping ecocriticism in East Asia. This is the first English anthology dedicated to the vibrant development of ecocriticism in Taiwan. It provides a window to Taiwan’s important contributions to international ecocriticism, especially an emerging “vernacular” trend in the field emphasizing the significance of local perspectives and styles, including non-western vocabularies, aesthetics, cosmologies, and political ideologies. Taiwan's unique history, geographic location, geology, and subtropical climate generate locale-specific, vernacular thinking about island ecology and environmental history, as well as global environmental issues such as climate change, dioxin pollution, species extinction, energy decisions, pollution, and environmental injustice. In hindsight, Taiwan's industrial modernization no longer appears as a success narrative among Asia's “Four Little Dragons,” but as a cautionary tale revealing the brute force entrepreneurial exploitation of the land and the people. In this light, this volume can be seen as a critical response to Taiwan's postcolonial, capitalist-industrial modernity, as manifested in the scholars’ readings of Taiwan's "mountain and river," ocean, animal, and aboriginal (non)fictional narratives, environmental documentaries, and art installations. This volume is endowed with a mixture of ecocosmopolitan and indigenous sensitivities. Though dominated by the Han Chinese ethnic group and its Confucian ideology, Taiwan is a place of complicated ethnic identities and affiliations. The succession of changing colonial and political regimes, made even more complex by the island’s sixteen aboriginal groups and several diasporic subcultures (South Asian immigrants, Western expatriates, and diverse immigrants from the Chinese mainland), has led to an ongoing quest for political and cultural identity. This complexity urges Taiwan-based ecoscholars to pay attention to the diasporic, comparative, and intercultural dimensions of local specificity, either based on their own diasporic experience or the cosmopolitan features of the Taiwanese texts they scrutinize. This cosmopolitan-vernacular dynamic is a key contribution Taiwan has to offer current ecocritical scholarship.