Mo Yan in Context

Description

In 2012 the Swedish Academy announced that Mo Yan had received the Nobel Prize in Literature for his work that "with hallucinatory realism merges folk tales, history, and the contemporary." The announcement marked the first time a resident of mainland China had ever received the award. This is the first English-language study of the Chinese writer's work and influence, featuring essays from scholars in a range of disciplines, from both China and the United States. Its introduction, twelve articles, and epilogue aim to deepen and widen critical discussions of both a specific literary author and the globalization of Chinese literature more generally. The book takes the "root-seeking" movement with which Mo Yan's works are associated as a metaphor for its organizational structure. The four articles of "Part I: Leaves" focus on Mo Yan's works as world literature, exploring the long shadow his works have cast globally. Howard Goldblatt, Mo Yan's English translator, explores the difficulties and rewards of interpreting his work, while subsequent articles cover issues such as censorship and the "performativity" associated with being a global author. "Part II: Trunk" explores the nativist core of Mo Yan's works. Through careful comparative treatment of related historical events, the five articles in this section show how specific literary works intermingle with China's national and international politics, its mid-twentieth-century visual culture, and its rich religious and literary conventions, including humor. The three articles in "Part III: Roots" delve into the theoretical and practical extensions of Mo Yan's works, uncovering the vibrant critical and cultural systems that ground Eastern and Western literatures and cultures. Mo Yan in Context concludes with an epilogue by sociologist Fenggang Yang, offering a personal and globally aware reflection on the recognition Mo Yan's works have received at this historical juncture.
Acknowledgments

Note

Introduction to Mo Yan in Context: Nobel Laureate and Global Storyteller, by Angelica Duran and Yuhan Huang

Part One: Leaves

A Mutually Rewarding yet Uneasy and Sometimes Fragile Relationship between Author and Translator, by Howard Goldblatt

The Censorship of Mo Yan's 天堂蒜薹之歌 (The Garlic Ballads), by Thomas Chen

Representations of "China" and "Japan" in Mo Yan's, Hayashi's, and Naruse's Texts, by Noriko J. Horiguchi

Abortion in Faulkner's The Wild Palms and Mo Yan's 蛙 (Frog), by Lanlan Du

Rural Chineseness, Mo Yan's Work, and World Literature, by Chengzhou He

Part Two: Trunk

The Realpolitik of Mo Yan's Fiction, by Sabina Knight

Mo Yan's Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out in a Cultural and Visual Context, by Yuhan Huang

Mo Yan's The Garlic Ballads and Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out in the Context of Religious and Chinese Literary Conventions, by Chi-ying Alice Wang

Religious Elements in Mo Yan's and Yan Lianke's Works, by Jinghui Wang

Mo Yan's Work and the Politics of Literary Humor, by Alexa Huang and Angelica Duran

Part Three: Roots

Cosmopolitanism and the Internationalization of Chinese Literature, by Ning Wang

Variation Study in Western and Chinese Comparative Literature, by Shunqing Cao and Miaomiao Wang

A Textbook Case of Comparative Cultural Studies, by Donald Mitchell and Angelica Duran

Epilogue

Soul Searching in Contemporary Chinese Literature and Society, by Fenggang Yang

Selected Bibliography of and about Mo Yan's Work in Chinese and English, by Angelica Duran and Yuhan Huang

Index

Sujets

• Literary Criticism
• Chinese
• Asian

Informations

• Publié par: Purdue University Press
• Date de parution: 01 novembre 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781612493442
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Mo Yan in Context: Nobel Laureate and Global Storyteller
Comparative Cultural Studies Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek, Series Editor
The Purdue University Press monograph series of Books in Comparative Cultural Studies publishes single-authored and thematic collected volumes of new scholarship. Manuscripts are invited for publication in the series in fields of the study of culture, literature, the arts, media studies, communication studies, the history of ideas, etc., and related disciplines of the humanities and social sciences to the series editor via e-mail at < [e-mail] >. Comparative cultural studies is a contextual approach in the study of culture in a global and intercultural context and work with a plurality of methods and approaches; the theoretical and methodological framework of comparative cultural studies is built on tenets borrowed from the disciplines of cultural studies and comparative literature and from a range of thought including literary and culture theory, (radical) constructivism, communication theories, and systems theories; in comparative cultural studies focus is on theory and method as well as application. For a detailed description of the aims and scope of the series including the style guide of the series link to < http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweblibrary/seriespurdueccs >. Manuscripts submitted to the series are peer reviewed followed by the usual standards of editing, copy editing, marketing, and distribution. The series is affiliated with CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture (ISSN 1481-4374), the peer-reviewed, full-text, and open-access quarterly published by Purdue University Press at < http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb >.
Volumes in the Purdue series of Books in Comparative Cultural Studies include < http://www.thepress.purdue.edu/series/comparative-cultural-studies >
Angelica Duran and Yuhan Huang, Mo Yan in Context: Nobel Laureate and Global Storyteller
Elke Sturm-Trigonakis, Comparative Cultural Studies and the New Weltliteratur
Lauren Rule Maxwell, Romantic Revisions in Novels from the Americas
Liisa Steinby, Kundera and Modernity
Text and Image in Modern European Culture , Ed. Natasha Grigorian, Thomas Baldwin, and Margaret Rigaud-Drayton
Sheng-mei Ma, Asian Diaspora and East-West Modernity
Irene Marques, Transnational Discourses on Class, Gender, and Cultural Identity
Comparative Hungarian Cultural Studies , Ed. Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek and Louise O. Vasvári
Hui Zou, A Jesuit Garden in Beijing and Early Modern Chinese Culture
Yi Zheng, From Burke and Wordsworth to the Modern Sublime in Chinese Literature
Agata Anna Lisiak, Urban Cultures in (Post)Colonial Central Europe
Representing Humanity in an Age of Terror , Ed. Sophia A. McClennen and Henry James Morello
Michael Goddard, Gombrowicz, Polish Modernism, and the Subversion of Form
Shakespeare in Hollywood, Asia, and Cyberspace , Ed. Alexander C.Y. Huang and Charles S. Ross
Gustav Shpet’s Contribution to Philosophy and Cultural Theory , Ed. Galin Tihanov
Comparative Central European Holocaust Studies , Ed. Louise O. Vasvári and Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek
Marko Juvan, History and Poetics of Intertextuality
Thomas O. Beebee, Nation and Region in Modern American and European Fiction
Paolo Bartoloni, On the Cultures of Exile, Translation, and Writing
Justyna Sempruch, Fantasies of Gender and the Witch in Feminist Theory and Literature
Kimberly Chabot Davis, Postmodern Texts and Emotional Audiences
Philippe Codde, The Jewish American Novel
Deborah Streifford Reisinger, Crime and Media in Contemporary France
Mo Yan in Context: Nobel Laureate and Global Storyteller
Edited by Angelica Duran and Yuhan Huang
Purdue University Press West Lafayette, Indiana
Copyright 2014 by Purdue University. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mo Yan in context : Nobel laureate and global storyteller / edited by Angelica Duran, Yuhan Huang.
   pages cm. -- (Comparative cultural studies)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-55753-681-5 (paperback) -- ISBN 978-1-61249-343-5 (epdf) -- ISBN 978-1-61249-344-2 (epub) 1. Mo, Yan, 1955---Criticism and interpretation. I. Duran, Angelica, editor. II. Huang, Yuhan, 1988- editor.
PL2886.O1684Z74 2014
895.13′52--dc23
2014012989
Cover image: Copyright release by Johannes Kolfhaus, Gymnasium Marienthal.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Note
Introduction to Mo Yan in Context: Nobel Laureate and Global Storyteller
Angelica Duran and Yuhan Huang
Part One Leaves
A Mutually Rewarding yet Uneasy and Sometimes Fragile Relationship between Author and Translator
Howard Goldblatt
The Censorship of Mo Yan’s ( The Garlic Ballads )
Thomas Chen
Representations of “China” and “Japan” in Mo Yan’s, Hayashi’s, and Naruse’s Texts
Noriko J. Horiguchi
Abortion in Faulkner’s The Wild Palms and Mo Yan’s (Frog)
Lanlan Du
Rural Chineseness, Mo Yan’s Work, and World Literature
Chengzhou He
Part Two Trunk
The Realpolitik of Mo Yan’s Fiction
Sabina Knight
Mo Yan’s Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out in a Cultural and Visual Context
Yuhan Huang
Mo Yan’s The Garlic Ballads and Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out in the Context of Religious and Chinese Literary Conventions
Chi-ying Alice Wang
Religious Elements in Mo Yan’s and Yan Lianke’s Works
Jinghui Wang
Mo Yan’s Work and the Politics of Literary Humor
Alexa Huang and Angelica Duran
Part Three Roots
Cosmopolitanism and the Internationalization of Chinese Literature
Ning Wang
Variation Study in Western and Chinese Comparative Literature
Shunqing Cao and Miaomiao Wang
A Textbook Case of Comparative Cultural Studies
Donald Mitchell and Angelica Duran
Epilogue
Soul Searching in Contemporary Chinese Literature and Society
Fenggang Yang
Selected Bibliography of and about Mo Yan’s Work in Chinese and English
Angelica Duran and Yuhan Huang
Index
Acknowledgments
The editors of Mo Yan in Context: Nobel Laureate and Global Storyteller Angelica Duran and Yuhan Huang acknowledge gratefully the advice and support of Purdue University and Purdue University Press, especially James Mullins, dean of Purdue University Libraries; Charles Watkinson, director of Purdue University Press; and Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek, editor of the Purdue University Press series of Books in Comparative Cultural Studies. Also deserving special acknowledgment include Keith Dickson, interim chair of the School of Languages and Cultures; John Duvall, editor of Purdue’s Modern Fiction Studies for direction and funding; Daniel Hsieh and Mark Tilton, consecutive directors of Purdue’s Asian Studies; Wei Hong, director of Purdue’s Confucius Institute; JoAnn Miller, associate dean of Interdisciplinary Programs; Charles S. Ross, director of Purdue’s Program in Comparative Literature; Irwin Weiser, dean of the College of Liberal Arts; Fenggang Yang, director of the Purdue Center for Religion and Chinese Culture; and Michael Brzezinski, dean of Purdue’s International Program. A final acknowledgment must go to the Sino-American Symposium , an important series of scholarly gatherings since the 1980s that alternates between the P.R. of China and the U.S., with the most recent hosted at Purdue University in 2013. Angelica Duran dedicates her efforts for the publication of the volume to Sean O’Connor, her companion in discovering “all Earths Kingdomes and their Glory” (Milton, Paradise Lost 11.384).
—Angelica Duran and Yuhan Huang
Note
Readers of Mo Yan in Context: Nobel Laureate and Global Storyteller should be aware of the style of the Purdue University Press’s series of Books in Comparative Cultural Studies: the series uses no footnotes or endnotes. When used judiciously, footnotes or endnotes provide additional depth to the main discussion; however, in this volume—following the series’ style guide—the contributors’ texts are presented to be reader friendly for general readers and thus without footnotes or endnotes. At the same time, the editors of the volume provide depth in part through a substantial introduction and a selected bibliography, the former articulating part of the conversation in which the volume’s contributors are engaged, and the latter giving signposts for further interactions. With regard to languages, the series generally follows in-text the Western sequence of First Name Surname unless, for example in Asian languages, the names are established, historical, or aka names. This is done because Western academic publishing is not consistent with surnames in other languages, which, similar to East Asian languages, use the Surname First Name sequence. However, some contributors to the volume have chosen the Chinese sequence in their texts, and two ways of in-text East Asian names reflect the contested nature of conventions as in East Asian names. Further, while the series style generally does not allow for titles with subtitles, the press decided to grant an exception, and thus the volume’s title is with a subtitle (articles in the volume are without subtitles).
Introduction to Mo Yan in Context: Nobel Laureate and Global Storyteller
Angelica Duran and Yuhan Huang
In The Ec