Category: Conference

Flyer for The Worst Chinese Poetry for June 1 & 2, 2021, 5-7PM

The Worst Chinese Poetry: A Virtual Roundtable

Posted on | by Thomas Mazanec

Join us for phase two of “The Worst Chinese Poetry: A Virtual Workshop.” This will be two-day roundtable discussion open to the public, following up on phase one, which was a series of fourteen miniature workshops held in early April.

Register here: https://tinyurl.com/WorstPoetry

Organized by our three Chinese literature specialists (Thomas Mazanec, Xiaorong Li, and Hangping Xu), the goal of this project is to rethink Chinese literary history through negative examples. It seeks to interrogate the aesthetic, social, moral, and political criteria by which Chinese-language poems were considered “bad” in different times and places. Selected contributions will be compiled to create a book, The Worst Chinese Poetry: A Critical Anthology.

  • Day 1 (June 1) will feature four thematic roundtables based upon our larger workshop held in April.
  • Day 2 (June 2) will begin with a reflection on the workshop by our three headlines, then will shift to a free-form discussion open to all.

Detailed schedule:

June 1
  • 5:00–5:05: Opening Remarks by Thomas Mazanec
  • 5:05–5:30: Vulgarity and Frivolity, featuring Xiaorong Li, Keith McMahon, and Jason Protass
  • 5:30–5:55: Commenting, Framing, and Judging, featuring Richard John Lynn, Maddalena Poli, Hangping Xu, and Yunshuang Zhang
  • 5:55–6:05: Break
  • 6:05–6:30: Appropriations and Aesthetics, featuring Graham Chamness, Soohyun Lee, Michelle Yeh, and Meimei Zhang
  • 6:30–6:55: Foreignness and Chineseness, featuring Nick Admussen, Angie Chau, and Sixiang Wang
June 2
  • 5:00-5:05: Welcome by Thomas Mazanec
  • 5:05-5:35: Reflections by Ronald Egan, Richard John Lynn, and Michelle Yeh
  • 5:35-5:55: Discussion between Egan, Lynn, and Yeh
  • 5:55-6:05: Break
  • 6:05-6:55: Open Discussion moderated by Thomas Mazanec, Xiaorong Li, and Hangping Xu

We hope to see you there!

Sponsored by the Department of East Asian Languages & Cultural Studies. Poster designed by Q. Z. Lau.

Announcement of 2021 Annual Meeting for American Oriental Society

EALCS to Host American Oriental Society’s Western Branch Meeting

Posted on | by Thomas Mazanec

We are delighted to announce that EALCS will host the Western Branch Meeting of the American Oriental Society on October 21–23, 2021. The meeting will take place online via Zoom. Please see the Call for Papers below for more information.

ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE 2021 ANNUAL MEETING

The 2021 meeting of the American Oriental Society, Western Branch will be hosted virtually via Zoom on October 21–23, 2021 by the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. All members of the AOS are cordially invited and encouraged to attend and to present papers.* Please send by July 31st a title and 250-word abstract of a proposed paper. Abstracts will be evaluated for the command they show of the chosen topic, methodological rigor and originality, clarity and persuasiveness of expression, and the potential contribution of the research to the field. Proposals for exceptional formats such as roundtable discussions or workshops may also be considered. Successful applicants to the conference will be notified by the end of August. Please note that in light of the special constraints of the meeting this year, the number of papers accepted may be lower than usual.

Abstracts should be submitted through the virtual registration portal at https://tinyurl.com/AOSWB2021. Abstracts are due by July 31, 2021. Notifications of decisions on abstracts will be sent out in August 2021.

Accepted papers will have up to 15 minutes for presentation. Final programs will be e-mailed to participants at the end of September. Sessions will be held on three successive days on October 21–23, each session at 1:00 PM–5:00 PM PDT. The business meeting will be conducted at 3:00 PM PDT on October 22.

For assistance in planning, all attendees, whether or not presenting a paper, should also register before September 30, 2021 through the virtual registration portal at https://tinyurl.com/AOSWB2021. This year, there is no registration fee for attendees, though presenters should be members of the AOS in good standing. Members who wish to contribute to the Daniel Bryant Memorial Fellowship Fund may send their donations to:

Alexei Ditter, Secretary-Treasurer WBAOS
Eliot 114
3203 Woodstock Boulevard
Portland, OR  97202

Other questions about the meeting may be directed to Thomas Mazanec (mazanec@ucsb.edu).

MEETING ARRANGEMENTS: Given the uncertainty of in-person meetings and international travel in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the conference will be conducted virtually via Zoom.

GRADUATE STUDENT AWARD: In order to encourage graduate students to engage in the activities of the Western Branch, the society in 2015 created the “Graduate Student Travel Award of the American Oriental Society, Western Branch.” This year, at least two awards will again be offered. Awardees will also be honored by special recognition during the conference and on the society’s website. The number of awards in future years will depend on the amount of donations made for this purpose. All applications to the Graduate Student Award will be anonymously reviewed by members of the Executive Committee of the Western Branch.

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS: We are glad to announce that the speaker for this year’s guest lecture will be Western Branch president Antje Richter, Associate Professor of Chinese at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

*YOU MUST BE A MEMBER OF THE AMERICAN ORIENTAL SOCIETY TO PRESENT A PAPER AT THE CONFERENCE. Membership information is available in all issues of the Journal of the American Oriental Society and at the American Oriental Society website: https://www.americanorientalsociety.org/.

Call for Papers: The Worst Chinese Poetry: A Virtual Workshop

Posted on | by Thomas Mazanec

The Worst Chinese Poetry: A Virtual Workshop
April 5–9, 2021

Organized by Thomas Mazanec, Xiaorong Li, and Hangping Xu

Call for Papers

Good poems are all alike, but every bad poem is bad in its own way. Poems may fail according to aesthetic, formal, political, social, moral, and other criteria. There are failures of innovation and imitation, of quantity and quality, of ambition and cowardice. The purpose of this virtual workshop is to explore what was thought to be the very worst poetry written in Chinese and to understand why it was regarded so poorly. We want to know who considered it bad, and according to what criteria. By examining the “worst” poetry and the harshest judgments on it from antiquity to the present, we hope to offer a literary history as seen through failure.

The workshop will introduce and discuss primary texts that address the question of why a poem might be called “bad.” Participants are invited to submit up to 10 pages (inclusive of English translation) of “bad” Chinese poetry or critical writings on it from any historical period, accompanied by 5–10 pages (1250–2500 words) of critical introduction. Texts should highlight important moments in the history of bad poetry and how they relate to aesthetic, political, social, and conceptual norms. During the workshop, participants will meet on Zoom for several half-days to discuss the contributions.

Our definition of badness is broad. The awkward, the ugly, the wild, the immoral, the vulgar, the boring, the didactic, the unusual—all may be considered bad. Poetry that’s good in one context is often bad in another. Some topics that participants may wish to consider addressing include (but are not limited to):

  • canon formation
  • genre theory
  • religious poetry
  • misinterpreted poetry
  • translated poetry
  • internet poetry
  • imitative or intertextual poetry
  • licentious or decadent poetry
  • poetry by political toadys or turncoats
  • poetry by emperors and governors (looking at you, Qianlong!)
  • poetry by non-Chinese or diaspora poets
  • poetry by women, workers, merchants, monks, and all varieties of non-literati
  • poetry in novels, plays, stories, and other kinds of literary works

Contributions will be collected, reviewed, and edited for publication as part of The Worst Chinese Poetry: A Critical Anthology. Abstracts of up to 250 words describing a Chinese text and its relevance to bad poetry are due by October 15, 2020. Full contributions will be due January 31, 2021. The workshop will convene the week of April 5–9, 2021.
Inquiries and proposals may be submitted to the organizers, Thomas Mazanec (mazanec@ucsb.edu), Xiaorong Li (lixiaor@ucsb.edu), and Hangping Xu (hangping@ucsb.edu).

World Literatures in Chinese: Transnational Perspectives of East Asian Cultures

Posted on | by Tony Chabolla

Date: January 24-26
Place: HSSB, 6020 (6th floor)

The Center for Taiwan Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, will host a conference in collaboration with the BK21 Plus Education & Research Group for Chinese & Japanese Language and Culture, Korea University, to be held on January 24-26, 2019, at UCSB. The conference will explore literatures written in Chinese that have developed in East Asia and under the influences of the Chinese cultural sphere in the past as well as widely spread over the world today since the last century.

The Media Region: Transnational Adaptations

Posted on | by Tony Chabolla

Speaker: Professor Thomas Lamarre (McGill University)
Date: Friday, January 25
Time: 5:00-6:30 pm
Place: Mosher Alumni House, Alumni Hall

In the course of adaptation across media forms and platforms, a series that initially appears ‘excessively obvious’ (Bordwell) may transform into something ‘excessively enigmatic’ (Elsaesser). Tracking the serialization of Hana yori dango or Hanadan across manga, music, animation, and cinema in the 1990s, Lamarre will explore how a relatively straightforward manga series turns into something like a puzzle or a mind game. While the study of production (creative industries) and narration (patterns of storytelling) sheds some light on the formal features of this transformation, Lamarre argues that the transmedial serialization is best seen in terms of the formation of a social technology or subjective technology. It transforms interpretive practices into game-like procedures, or rules of the game. Looking at trans-medial serialization as subjective technology also allows for a better understanding of the power formations that coalesce around it in the context of transnational serialization. This is especially important in the case of Hanadan in the 2000s. Hanadan has been touted as the most remade series in the East Asia region, with Japanese, Taiwanese, Chinese, Korean, Philippine, and Indian versions. As such, this series offers insights in the emergence of new ways of understanding “Asia” as a media region.

Imaging ‘East Asia:’ Constructing Knowledge Through the Visual

Posted on | by Tony Chabolla

Join us this Friday and Saturday for the East Asia Center Graduate Student Conference!

Friday, January 25, 5:00-6:30: Professor Thomas Lamarre (McGill University) Keynote Speech, Mosher Alumni House

Saturday, January 26, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.: Graduate Student Conference, Mosher Alumni House

Aesthetic sensibilities and visual cognition of the external world are fundamental to the construction of knowledge and divination of meaning. For “Imagining ‘East Asia:’ Constructing Knowledge through the Visual,” a UCSB East Asia Center Graduate Student Conference, we seek proposals that grapple with how “East Asia” and its constituent cultural, linguistic, or national properties and territories are problematized through the framework of the visual (e.g. art, film, digital and popular culture, or the everyday). Visual culture constructs and is constructed by assumptions about the world. How one reads visual culture is determined on at least two fronts—first, by the artist/producer through choices of subject, style, and genre, among others and, second, by the audience’s worldviews, biases, and dispositions. Given the inherent subjectivity of visual cognition, we as historians, art historians, anthropologists, religion, film, and literature scholars are forever conscious of alternative readings and wary of misrepresentations.