China and the West

Zheng, Lihua. Chine-France [ID D24375].
Er schreibt : "La deuxième expérience que je voudrais mentionner a été acquise dans le cours de lecture des textes littéraires que j'ai donné à mes étudiants de troisième année. Je leur ai fait lire le roman d'Albert Camus : L'étranger. Beaucoup d'entre eux m'ont dit après la lecture qu'ils trouvaient ce roman facile à lire mais difficile à comprendre. Ils en ont retiré quelques impressions vagues dont celle que Meursault est un homme bizarre. Je leur ai dit que c'était un homme honnête et très conscient de la condition humaine et que selon l'auteur, c'est un héros sans actes héroïques. Mes étudiants avaient les yeux écarquillés. Puis je leur ai expliqué le contexte social dans lequel a été écrit le roman, la mentalité des jeunes Occidentaux pendant les années 30 et 40, la philosophie de l'absurde de Camus et le style que l'auteur a adopté dans ce roman. Ainsi, mes étudiants ont beaucoup mieux compris ce roman."

Wolfgang Ommerborn ist Professor am Lehrstuhl Politik Ostasiens der Universität Bochum.

Robert E. Buswell ist Vize-Vorsteher des International Studies and Overseas Programs der University of California, Los Angeles.

Haun Saussy ist Visiting Associate Professor der City University of Hong Kong.

Michael H. Hunt ist Vorsitzender des Modern China Search Committee der University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Dwight H. Perkins ist Honorary Research Professor an der Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.

Wen Jiabao macht einen offiziellen Besuch in der Schweiz. Adolf Ogi empfängt ihn in Bern.

Ferrantello, Donna. Moby-Dick and peace [ID D30218].
Original study about the influence of Orientalism on Melville and how Transcendentalists and Orientalists were instrumental to Melville's writing of his classic novel.
1) Chapter One - Ishmael's Transcontinental Journey
Given the cultural transformations triggered by science, trade and travel, Ishmael questions the meaning of life and religious understandings. What forces shaped Melville’s life? How does he depart from American mainstream Christianity? Why does Ishmael take the journey eastward on the Pequod and within his inner consciousness? What colleagues shared Melville’s explorations? How have modern critics dealt with Melville’s relationship to the Orient?
2) Chapter Two - The Influence of the China Trade, Travel and Texts on Melville's Life and Thought
Since Melville's relatives and contemporaries were involved with the China trade and Oriental cultures, they contributed to his knowledge. Passages about the China trade and Oriental culture are shown within Moby-Dick and other works. What other thinkers and texts about the Orient itself were influential?
3) Chapter Three - Transcendence to Peace: Meditation and the Orient
Melville expresses both Christian and Oriental images in the novel. After Ishmael asserts his "meditation and water" mythos in the first chapter, what direction does his "dive into consciousness" take? How does Melville develop the unfolding stages of Ishmael’s consciousness? How does symbolism relate to consciousness and the external narration of the whale hunt? How do the writings of Thoreau and Emerson influence Melville's thought?
4) Chapter Four - The Romantic Heritage: Nature- Philosophy and Polarities
Why was Melville so involved with the notion of polarities characteristic of Romanticism? How did his Romantic precursors perceive the relationship between mind and matter? What thinkers felt affinity with the wisdom from the Orient? How did Romanticism challenge materialistic orientations?
5) Chapter Five - A Symphony of Peace: Melville and Universalism
Melville was surrounded by people engaged with intense religious involvements and radical debate. The revelation of peace and harmony affects Ishmael's understanding of the relationship between Christianity and the world religions. Ishmael's transcendent experience of peace relates to the individual, the relationship between masculine and feminine and the world cultures at large. Who were the Orientalists who influenced and/or paralleled Melville’s own speculations about religion and universal truth? What roles do Ishmael and Queequeg play in this debate? How does the symbolism of the sea express universality?
6) Chapter Six - Conclusion : Writing Moby-Dick the Logos and The Tao
Similar to other Transcendentalists and Romantics, Melville discovers enlightenment through intuition and the reconciliation of polarities. Is it possible that the notion of the "Tao" was a germinating seed and design for the artistry of Moby-Dick? The pattern for design, as both conscious and unconscious creation, originates with a way of knowing and perceiving nature. Ishmael’s Romantic and Christian, Jobian quest to know the face of the whale develops and expands into a new understanding of God or a universal consciousness.

William L. Parish ist Centennial Professor in Chinese Studies an der University of Chicago.

Ferenc Glatz besucht China.

John Edwards ist Konsul des britischen Generalkonsulats in Shanghai.

Sheng, Ning. Guan yu Wu'erfu de 1910 [ID D31611].
Sheng Ning's essay offers a third discussion of Woolf's theory of fiction, investigating the reasons of Woolf's choice of time and rectifying the translation and interpretation of Woolf's diction 'human character'. 'Woolf's particular choice of the year and the month is the exhibition of the post-impressionist paintings organized by Woolf's friends Rogert Fry and Desmond MacCarthy'. Sheng claims, that Woolf sees the new artistic perception conveyed by this Post-Impressionist show as demonstrating an era-breaking change of self-understanding. Sheng holds that the most important idea Woolf wants to express in 'Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown' is that 'here is a character imposing itself upon another person. Hereis Mrs. Brown making someone begin almost automatically to write a novel about her'. Sheng concludes that 'what Woolf means is that on or about December 1910 the image of character changed.

Glen Dudbridge ist Mitglied des Review Committee des Chiang Ching-kuo Sinological Center in Prag.

Gründung des rumänischen Generalkonsulats in Shanghai.

Gao Xingjian erhält den Nobelpreis.

Antony Tatlow ist Mitglied des International Editorial Board von Comparative criticism.

David Irvine ist Botschafter der australischen Botschaft in Beijing.

Anne O. Yue-Hashimoto ist Gastprofessorin an der Chinese University of Hong Kong und der City Univesity of Hong Kong.

Anne O. Yue-Hashimoto ist Mitherausgeberin des Contemporary Research in Modern Chinese, Japan.

Nicola Di Cosmo ist Mitherausgeber von Asia major.