Not as productive a Monday as I thought it could have been, though getting through the entire Derrida in two sittings was an accomplishment, I thought. The Du Fu poem has a great line about loyalty: 葵藿傾太陽， 物性固莫奪. Kui2huo4 here refers to two different plants that always face the sun.
Derrida, Jacques, and Derek Attridge. ""this Strange Institution Called Literature" : An Interview with Jacques Derrida." In Acts of Literature. New York: Routledge, 1992, 456
On first reading, this interview with Derrida left me with abstract visions: Autobiography stands at the core of both philosophy and literature -- just look at Nietzsche and Sartre ; literature is logocentric and phallocentric at once ; Romeo and Juliet and other timeless literary classics are iterable singularities, shimmering patterns similar in my vision to the visualizers that come with audio playback software. I think I'll have a much better handle on the second reading; in the meantime I feel confident that the key to understanding Derrida is to put him in the context of the history of language: he belongs at the bleeding edge, where language critiquing itself offers up great hope, but also the potential for nihilism.
Du Fu 杜甫. "Zi Jing Pu Fengxian Xian Yong Huai Wu Bai Zi." In Xiang Zhu Quan Tang Shi. Edited by Lin Debao 林德保, Li Jun 李俊 and Ni Wenjie 倪文杰. Dalian: Dalian chubanshe, 1997, 3544.
Also completed and glossed chapter 7 of Hong lou meng. Also listened to more of Seth Lehrer's lectures on the Story of English.
Needs: Connect Derrida to rhetoric, to the history of world language. Connect Yang Jiang to rhetoric. See rhetorical studies of Chinese lit in Chinese.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Saturday: Reading at Leisure
Adam's work schedule helped me be in my office and looking at books before 9am, and I worked until lunch time. I did a nice combination of inspectional readings (Witke, Zurndorfer, Buse, Derrida) completed a few scans (Chao, Jin Kemu) and a little Chinese reading (Hong lou meng chapter 7). I really need to get to some poems today still, and if possible get started on Zhang Ailing.
Here's some connections I'm thinking about:
1. Li Qingzhao, Yang Jiang: both autobiographical chroniclers of the domestic space.
2. From Hong lou meng to Zhang Ailing. A purposeful (even political, even feminist?) transmission of rhetoric, lexicon, and topoi (?)
3. From Shen Fu to Yang Jiang: identify common expressions, make a case for their importance to identity-formation; figure out what that means for our sense of Chinese history.
Buse, Peter. Benjamin's Arcades : an unguided tour Manchester ; New York: Manchester University Press, 2005
Three historians and a literary critic present seventeen reading-responses to the English translation of Passagen-Werk. The responses are titled with intriguing headings like "Judaism" , "Modernity/modernism" , "Empathy/Einfühlung" , "Jeux/joie/jouissance" ; although these responses stick close to Benjamin's texts, it's easy to see the possible stakes they have in other discussions. The essays read perfectly well without a copy of Passagen-Werk at hand.
Cao Xueqin 曹雪芹. "Zhi Yan Zhai Chong Ping Shi Tou Ji : Geng Chen Jiao Ben (Chapter 7)." In Edited by Deng Suifu 邓遂夫. Beijing: Zuojia chubanshe, 2006, 1503
For chapter 7, I used this edition.
Chao, Yuen Ren. Zao nian zi zhuan 早年自傳 (Yuen Ren Chao's autobiography : the first 30 years, 1892-1921). Taipei: Zhuanji wenxue chubanshe, 1984.
Derrida -- "This Strange Institution Called Literature" -- haven't prepared the formal citation yet.
Jin Kemu 金克木. Shu du wan le 书读完了. Shanghai: Hanyu dacidian chubanshe, 2006.
Witke, Roxane. Transformation of attitudes towards women during the May Fourth Era of modern China Berkeley:1970
Witke's 1970 dissertation is a groundbreaking presentation of the characters and incidents leading to the modern Chinese women's movement. She begins with early critics of such customs as ritual suicide and footbinding, and works her way up to the 20th century and the careers of figures like Mao Zedong and Xiang Jingyu. None of the characters, incidents and issues described are presented in great detail; rather, the dissertation is a large set of short pieces summing up an extremely large set of readings.
Zurndorfer, Harriet Thelma. Chinese women in the imperial past : new perspectives Leiden Netherlands] ; Boston: Brill, 1999
This volume records papers delivered at a 1996 workshop; it also seems to be the prelude to the journal Nannü. Of particular importance is Idema's discussion of the "diversity and internal development" of the poetry collection Duanchang ji and biographical materials about Zhang Yuniang.
Here's some connections I'm thinking about:
1. Li Qingzhao, Yang Jiang: both autobiographical chroniclers of the domestic space.
2. From Hong lou meng to Zhang Ailing. A purposeful (even political, even feminist?) transmission of rhetoric, lexicon, and topoi (?)
3. From Shen Fu to Yang Jiang: identify common expressions, make a case for their importance to identity-formation; figure out what that means for our sense of Chinese history.
Buse, Peter. Benjamin's Arcades : an unguided tour Manchester ; New York: Manchester University Press, 2005
Three historians and a literary critic present seventeen reading-responses to the English translation of Passagen-Werk. The responses are titled with intriguing headings like "Judaism" , "Modernity/modernism" , "Empathy/Einfühlung" , "Jeux/joie/jouissance" ; although these responses stick close to Benjamin's texts, it's easy to see the possible stakes they have in other discussions. The essays read perfectly well without a copy of Passagen-Werk at hand.
Cao Xueqin 曹雪芹. "Zhi Yan Zhai Chong Ping Shi Tou Ji : Geng Chen Jiao Ben (Chapter 7)." In Edited by Deng Suifu 邓遂夫. Beijing: Zuojia chubanshe, 2006, 1503
For chapter 7, I used this edition.
Chao, Yuen Ren. Zao nian zi zhuan 早年自傳 (Yuen Ren Chao's autobiography : the first 30 years, 1892-1921). Taipei: Zhuanji wenxue chubanshe, 1984.
Derrida -- "This Strange Institution Called Literature" -- haven't prepared the formal citation yet.
Jin Kemu 金克木. Shu du wan le 书读完了. Shanghai: Hanyu dacidian chubanshe, 2006.
Witke, Roxane. Transformation of attitudes towards women during the May Fourth Era of modern China Berkeley:1970
Witke's 1970 dissertation is a groundbreaking presentation of the characters and incidents leading to the modern Chinese women's movement. She begins with early critics of such customs as ritual suicide and footbinding, and works her way up to the 20th century and the careers of figures like Mao Zedong and Xiang Jingyu. None of the characters, incidents and issues described are presented in great detail; rather, the dissertation is a large set of short pieces summing up an extremely large set of readings.
Zurndorfer, Harriet Thelma. Chinese women in the imperial past : new perspectives Leiden Netherlands] ; Boston: Brill, 1999
This volume records papers delivered at a 1996 workshop; it also seems to be the prelude to the journal Nannü. Of particular importance is Idema's discussion of the "diversity and internal development" of the poetry collection Duanchang ji and biographical materials about Zhang Yuniang.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Rediscovering the Text
In a world where my boyfriend Adam has to go to work and I don't, I think the best possible vacation day is one where I can spend the entire day reading. So I did, spending almost the entire day at the Minneapolis Public Library and the evening at home at my table. Looking back, I can really see now how 2007 was, for me, all about close-reading, translating, interpreting, scanning, inspecting, outlining, "mind-mapping," comparing, or evaluating books, but really very little reading -- reading as in, take up the book and go through it, from page one to the end, reading every sentence and every paragraph. There is real irony in that, since I am a literature student; and yet, I feel it was an inevitable stage, because I'm coming to a realization that all graduate students must have sooner or later:
There's too much to read.
Of course I've known that all along at a certain level, but that was a level much below more relevant levels: the level of reading the individual course syllabus, of plowing through the single, "classic" Chinese text. Prof. Waltner's year-long special projects seminar was my first glimpse of the gaping caverns that open up on the road ahead, of projects that require me to somehow master multiple categories of secondary literature and an indeterminate (that's the scariest part, of course) amount of Chinese-language literature.
How does anyone do it, ever?
Current Reading:
Tony Buzan, with Barry Buzan, The Mind Map Book, 1990. Thumbs...used to be up, but now mostly down. One the one hand, Buzan points out that conventional outlines don't always allow the student to think freely, expressively, or imagistically. But on the other hand, he's basically the Ronco-salesman of intellectual work. Just check out his website: buzanworld.com: it's mostly advertising and testimonials from an unholy alliance of corporate America and the British public, and a rather cheesy product called "iMindMap."
Mortimer Jerome Adler, with Charles van Doren, How to Read a Book, 1974 (2nd ed.) Thumbs used to be down on this one, but now way up again. Adler's advice on how to read at the elementary, inspectional, analytic and -- most important for the graduate student -- the syntopical levels is absolutely crucial to how I see reading today. But more than that, consider the historical situation. If Buzan represents the inherent dishonesty of corporate marketing, then Adler's reading techniques reflect in microcosm his hearteningly positivist, American belief in the power of education. How to Read a Book's biggest limitation may be that it believes there is no book that can't be understood, no set of issues that can't be arranged into a straightforward analytical narrative -- ultimately, that learning and contemplation can solve everything. But honey, if that's wrong, I don't wanna be right.
Of course I've known that all along at a certain level, but that was a level much below more relevant levels: the level of reading the individual course syllabus, of plowing through the single, "classic" Chinese text. Prof. Waltner's year-long special projects seminar was my first glimpse of the gaping caverns that open up on the road ahead, of projects that require me to somehow master multiple categories of secondary literature and an indeterminate (that's the scariest part, of course) amount of Chinese-language literature.
How does anyone do it, ever?
Current Reading:
Tony Buzan, with Barry Buzan, The Mind Map Book, 1990. Thumbs...used to be up, but now mostly down. One the one hand, Buzan points out that conventional outlines don't always allow the student to think freely, expressively, or imagistically. But on the other hand, he's basically the Ronco-salesman of intellectual work. Just check out his website: buzanworld.com: it's mostly advertising and testimonials from an unholy alliance of corporate America and the British public, and a rather cheesy product called "iMindMap."
Mortimer Jerome Adler, with Charles van Doren, How to Read a Book, 1974 (2nd ed.) Thumbs used to be down on this one, but now way up again. Adler's advice on how to read at the elementary, inspectional, analytic and -- most important for the graduate student -- the syntopical levels is absolutely crucial to how I see reading today. But more than that, consider the historical situation. If Buzan represents the inherent dishonesty of corporate marketing, then Adler's reading techniques reflect in microcosm his hearteningly positivist, American belief in the power of education. How to Read a Book's biggest limitation may be that it believes there is no book that can't be understood, no set of issues that can't be arranged into a straightforward analytical narrative -- ultimately, that learning and contemplation can solve everything. But honey, if that's wrong, I don't wanna be right.
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