Instructor: Liu Jianmei Office hours: Thursday 10:30am-12:00pm, or by appointment or

Transcription

1 HUMA5440 Contemporary Chinese Fiction Spring, 2015 Instructor: Liu Jianmei Office hours: Thursday 10:30am-12:00pm, or by appointment or Course Description This class will be a close reading of contemporary Chinese fiction. The goal for this class is to get familiar with various trends of contemporary Chinese fiction, and learn how to read those contemporary Chinese novels from different theoretical approaches. Through discussing the imaginative presentation of self, family, history, and society in selected literary texts, we examine how contemporary Chinese writers from different historical periods perceive and represent reality. We will discuss questions related to the close interdependence among writing and politics, nationalism and personal choice, modernity and tradition, global culture and native resource, society of consumption and the elite spiritual journey. This course emphasizes detailed textual analysis, content and form. Students are to learn not just to summarize but to critique, to have an opinion, about characters, structures, writers with further research. You will practice your skills in your discussion, presentation and critical analysis assignments. Grading Participation/discussion 20% Pop quizzes 10% Individual presentation in novels (15 mins) 20% Group Presentation in English academic articles (10 mins) 10% Final Paper (10-15pages) 40% Class Requirements: Attendance and in-- class participation are weighed heavily in this course. Students are expected to com plete the reading assignm ent PR IO R to com ing to class and be ready to discuss and engage in class. If no participation effort is made in class, attendance alone cannot guarantee a high mark for this portion of your grade. Class participation is expected since talking with fellow students is the best way to learn. So earn your good grade the fun way start and keep talking in class! Don t be afraid to make mistakes, but you do need to show that you are familiar with the readings and that you have seriously thought about the texts. Be prepared and read before class. Pop quizzes will be given from time to time in class without prior notice. The quiz usually consists of questions only and would not take more than 15 minutes to

2 complete. Individual Presentation Sign-up is on the first day of class. You can focus on one important theme/concept (such as the urban space, gender, sexuality, cultural production, high versus low, modernity, etc.) and see how it is being represented or constructed in the text. Or analyze one character, or compare different characters. You need to make a clear argument/present a reasonable opinion, supported by details from the text and/or your research. Your individual oral presentation will be about minutes. You are encouraged to do a PPT presentation. You can NOT just summarize the text(s), except when you are presenting the criticisms. But you are encouraged to ask thoughtful questions. Group presentation: You and your teammate will do a brief summary of one English academic article or one chapter of a book. Please also add your comments on the article or chapter you will present. The presentation is about 10 minutes. Final paper must include critical analysis * English paper: pages in English, double-spaced Things to pay attention to when you write an analysis: 1. Critical analysis means that you must apply thoughtful reasoning to the arguments presented in this course through readings and discussion. It means not only finding what is right with something, but also what is wrong with the argument, and why. 2. You must always have a thesis statement, which must be supported throughout your writing, with reasons or examples. That is, everything in your analysis must be related to your major argument the thesis statement. 3. You need to keep your reader in mind. Are you giving the reader enough information? Therefore, you will need to pay attention to details so that you will support yourself with detailed and specific examples from the text. And you must explain your examples in a way that makes them related to your arguments. Remember Critical analysis is NOT: 1. A summary. 2. Broad generalizations without further support and analysis 3. Citing long quotes from the readings without analyzing them or explaining their importance to you or to us

3 Class Rules: NO plagiarism!!! This is taken VERY seriously. Violations (including using online device such as Google translation) will result in a ZERO on your grade. No use of mobile phone i.e. no talking, texting, ing, or web browsing on your mobile phone. Please put your phone on silent mode in class. If constant usage is found or a message/ring tone is heard, your phone will be taken away until the class ends. Listening etiquette please listen carefully while someone is talking. Speaking etiquette please allow others to finish their sentence before you offer yours. Class Schedule (Subjected to change): Week One: Introduction Week Two: 汪曾祺 受戒 大淖纪事 薛大娘 岁寒三友 鉴赏家 寻根文学 : 韩少功 爸爸爸 山南水北 归去来 Week Three: no class (finish readings at home by yourselves, 通读莫言小说 ) Week Four: Week Five: Week Six: 寻根文学莫言 透明的红萝卜 铁孩 红高粱家族 阿城的 树王 棋王 孩子王 余华的小说 十八岁出门远行 1986 往事与刑罚 古典爱情 许三观卖血记 兄弟 第七天 苏童的小说 米 一九三四年的逃亡 妇女生活 罂粟之家 黄雀记 Week Seven: 阎连科的小说 四书 发现小说 风雅颂 北京 : 最后的纪念

4 受活 坚硬如水 Week Eight: 莫言的小说 生死疲劳 丰乳肥臀 酒国 Week Nine: Week Ten: 王安忆的小说 叔叔的故事 长恨歌 天香 高行健的小说 灵山 高行健诗歌集 一个人的圣经 Week Eleven: 迟子建的小说 额尔古纳河右岸 群山之巅 Week Twelve: 贾平凹的小说 秦腔 带灯 老生 Week Thirteen: Conclusion 延伸阅读 刘再复, 高行健论 王德威, 跨世纪风华 : 当代小说二十家 Chan, Shelley W. "From Fatherland to Motherland: On Mo Yan's Red Sorghum and Big Breasts and Full Hips." World Literature Today 74, 3 (Summer 2000): Feuerwerker, Yi-tsi Mei. "The Post-Modern 'Search for Roots' in Han Shaogong, Mo Yan, and Wang Anyi." In Feuerwerker, Ideology, Power, Text: Self-Representation and the Peasant "Other" in Modern Chinese Literature. Stanford: SUP, 1998, Knight, Deirdre Sabina. "Capitalist and Enlightenment Values in 1990s Chinese Fiction: The Case of Yu Hua's Blood Seller." Textual Practice 16, 3 (Nov. 2002): Rpt. as "Capitalist and Enlightenment Values in Chinese Fiction of the 1990s: The Case of Yu Hua's Blood Merchant." In Charles Laughlin, ed., Contested Modernity in Chinese Literature. NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, "Self-Ownership and Capitalist Values in 1990s Chinese Fiction." In The Heart of Time: Moral Agency in Twentieth-Century Chinese Fiction. Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2006, [deals in part with Yu Hua's Xu Sanguan the Bloodseller]

5 Kwok-kan Tam and Terry Siu-han Yip, eds., Gender, Discourse and the Self in Literature: Issues in Mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. HK: The Chinese University Press, 2010 Liu, Jianmei. "Joining the Commune or Withdrawing from the Commune? A Reading of Yan Lianke's Shouhuo." Modern Chinese Literature and Culture 19, 2 (Fall 2007): Lu, Tonglin. Gender and Sexuality in Twentieth Century Chinese Literature and Society. Albany: SUNY Press, Lu Tonglin. Misogyny, Cultural Nihilism and Oppositional Politics: Contemporary Chinese Experimental Fiction. Stanford: Stanford University Press, Stuckey, Andrew. "Return to the Primitive: De-Civilized Origins in Han Shaogong's Fiction." In Stuckey, Old Stories Retold: Narrative and Vanishing Pasts in Modern China. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2010, Tang, Xiaobing. "Residual Modernism: Narratives of Self in Contemporary Chinese Fiction." Modern Chinese Literature 7, 1 (Spring 1993):7-31. Tsai, Chien-hsin. "The Museum of Innocence: The Great Leap Forward and Famine, Yan Lianke, and Four Books." MCLC Resource Center Publication (May 2011) "In Sickness or in Health: Yan Lianke and the Writing of Autoimmunity." Modern Chinese Literature and Culture 23, 1 (Spring 2011): Visser, Robin. "Displacement of the Urban-Rural Confrontation in Su Tong's Fiction." Modern Chinese Literature 9, 1 (1995): Wang, Ban. The Sublime Figure of History. Stanford: SUP, Yang Xiaobin. The Chinese Postmodern: Trauma and Irony in Chinese Avante-Garde Fiction. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002 Yue, Gang. "Postrevolutionary Leftovers: Zhang Xianliang and Ah Cheng." In The Mouth that Begs: Hunger, Cannibalism, and the Politics of Eating in Modern China. Durham: Duke University Press, 1999, Course ILOs 1. To gain an overview of contemporary Chinese novels and recent critical interest. 2. To master some fundamental concepts in literary and cultural studies. 3. To design a research project through a critically refreshing perspective.