The CEAPS Brown Bag series is designed to give U of I graduate students and faculty a chance to share their work with colleagues on campus. The VASP Brown Bag series features talks by our current visiting scholars from universities in Asia. Each semester, our VASP scholars present their research in a public forum, after which faculty and peers are invited to ask questions and give scholarly feedback.
VASP Brown Bag - Weihua Li, "The Narrative Ethics of 'Historical Writings' in 'The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons'"
Apr 24, 2023, 12:00 - 1:00 pm
Coble Hall 306 (801 S. Wright St., Champaign)
Weihua Li (Professor, Hebei Normal University, China)
Summary:
The section on “Historical Writings”in “The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons” (《文心雕龙·史传》) by Liu Xie (刘勰) is the first theoretical article in the history of Chinese literary theory to comprehensively discuss the style of historical writings. It paid much attention to the ethics of historical narration. Specifically, it criticized the historical narrations which are “contrary to the principle found in the Classics and did not do justice to the actual fact” (违经失实), while praising the historical writings of “giving honor to the virtuous and protecting one’s dear ones by hiding their faults” (尊贤隐讳). This paper illustrates, with the theory of “narrative ethics” in contemporary Western narratology, that narrative ethics are always self-contradictory both in Liu Xie’s discussion and in Chinese historical narrative texts. This is determined by the ideological meta-narrative of the imperial autocratic society. Breaking through the restriction of the old meta-narrative requires not only the efforts of historical narrators, but also the making of new cultural meta-narratives.
Bio:
Weihua Li is a professor in the College of Chinese Language and Literature, Hebei Normal University. She does her main research on comparative poetics, and has published 3 books and more than 40 papers in this field. Her recent research focuses on the study of “The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons” (《文心雕龙》) the most important work in ancient Chinese literary theory. In her works, she employs the theories of contemporary narratology and semiotics to explore the interactions between Chinese ancient canons and Western contemporary theories, with the goal of fostering cross-cultural understanding and mutual illumination between Eastern and Western cultures.
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VASP Brown Bag - Weihua Li, "The Narrative Ethics of 'Historical Writings' in 'The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons'"
May 1, 2023, 12:00 - 1:00 pm
Coble Hall 306 (801 S. Wright St., Champaign)
Tianjia Lu (China Academy of Art)
Summary:
Although the study of artists' manuscripts has a long tradition, there has been little research on manuscripts (images or text) by Chinese painters. Manuscripts were incomplete works in comparison to published books; they were also calligraphy arts when compared to printed texts. This talk starts with a journey of finding different editions of 18th Century Chinese Painter Hua Yan (华喦,1682-1756)’s anthology Ligou Ji (离垢集), including four different types of Hua’s manuscripts. The following is an overview of the major discoveries from those manuscripts, including some significant indications of his unknown early life. Those manuscripts provide a chance to critically reappraise the authenticity first formal biography of Hua Yan by an Hangzhou local gazetteer, Qiantang Xianzhi (钱塘县志,1718). This biography was published when Hua was only thirty-seven. It was unusual to write a biography for such a young man who was still alive in a government document at that time. This talk illustrates that the family of Prince Shuncheng, a Manchu loyal family, is the primary factor for this record. This family, who were friends of Hua, once had a high status at the Hangzhou banner, and they were also presupposed as a reader by editors of this gazetteer. On the one hand, the painter's manuscripts reveal his early social activities with the dignitary in Beijing, the capital; on the other hand, his experiences and this local gazetteer co-imply that the painter acted as a medium of communication between local officials, scholars, and members of the imperial family at the time.
Bio:
Tianjia Lu is a PhD student in the School of Art and Humanities, China Academy of Art. His research interests include history and theory of ancient Chinese painting and print culture in early modern China. His current research has focused on the arts in early 18th-century China.