The Journal of the European Association for Chinese Studies

Diglossia, Intralingual Translation, Rewriting

Rainier Lanselle — 2023-12-27

The article addresses the issue of the numerous vernacular narratives of the huaben 話本 genre (late Ming/early Qing period, 17th c.) that are the result of the rewriting of earlier sources in literary language. It introduces a new method of analysis of this transformative process based on a systematic survey of the components of these stories: language, narrative points of view, rewriting micro-strategies. This allows for a detailed description of the way in which the authors/editors of the time produced these narratives. This methodology is anchored in a comprehensive theoretical approach to the development of the vernacular in the period under consideration, underlining that the definition of the vernacular is not purely linguistic but includes many other factors. It recalls that the situation of diglossia in written Chinese was a subject that authors of the time were acutely aware of and which they discussed extensively in their critical writings. It suggests that the process whereby huaben were produced from earlier sources corresponds to what has been described in modern times as intralingual translation, which could be defined as a commentary, but a commentary that plays on several language registers.

十七世紀中國出現大量基於文言小說改編的話本小說。本文通過考察話本這一敘事體裁的語言、敘事視角和微觀改寫策略，介紹一種分析小說改編過程的新方法，用以詳細描述作者或編者的寫作方式和敘述宗旨。文章立足於對明末清初通俗文學發展的綜合性理論研究，強調對“俗”的特殊定義，比如“白話”不單純指一套語言上與文言相對的體系，而是還包括許多其他因素。評論著作表明，當時的作家和文人都敏銳地意識到中文書面語中白話與文言並存的現象。基於文言模本的話本小說，其編寫過程在某種意義上實屬翻譯學的“語內翻譯”範疇。語內翻譯基本上可視為一種評述，在這裡則表現爲一種轉換不同語體的評述。

The Landscape of Historical Memory. The Politics of Museums and Memorial Culture in Post-Martial Law Taiwan by Kirk A. Denton

Irmy Schweiger — 2023-12-26

The Landscape of Historical Memory. The Politics of Museums and Memorial Culture in Post-Martial Law Taiwan

Kirk A. Denton

Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2021. 272 pp.

ISBN: 9789888528578 (Hardback)

Taiwan Literature in the 21st Century: A Critical Reader by Chia-rong Wu and Ming-ju Fan

Kuei-fen Chiu — 2023-12-26

Taiwan Literature in the 21st Century: A Critical Reader

Chia-rong Wu and Ming-ju Fan

Singapore: Springer, 2023. 265 pp.
ISBN: 9789811983795

L’empire terrestre. Histoire du politique en Chine aux XXe et XXIe siècles by Yves Chevrier

Soline Schweisguth — 2023-12-26

In this two-volume opus, Yves Chevrier, who was director of “Centre Chine” at EHESS and is now professor emeritus at CESPRA (Centre d’études sociologiques et politiques Raymond Aron), seeks to shed a new light on the history of politics in twentieth China. This essay aims at understanding modern China as a “terrestrial empire” conceived as a “specific non-democratic political form, different from the late empire […] and from Mao’s totalitarianism” (29). In the first volume, which runs from 1895 to 1976, he defines three moments in the process of construction of politics revolving around two axes: democracy and the state. The first part starts in 1895 when the political form of a world-Empire went into crisis and, according to Chevrier, started to be conceived as political. This revolution in the conception of politics ended up in the institutionalisation of democracy. The second part focuses on the period between 1915 and 1925 when, according to Yves Chevrier, a new kind of politics emerged, that of autonomous action led by activist subjects. Modern politics which was reinvented through the paradigm of the subject and a new form of democracy emerged: activist democracy. Finally, from 1926 to 1976, the originality of Maoism is found in the decentralised activist struggle unleashed in order to achieve hegemony. In this conception, Mao Zedong appears as the “Divider” creating a fragmented system of activism, breaking any monopoly by universalising action.

法國學者伊夫 · 謝弗裡耶，曾任法國高等社會科學學院現代中國研究中心主任，現為雷蒙∙阿隆社會學與政治學研究中心名譽教授。在他關於二十世紀中國政治史的兩卷著作中，為讀者展現了一個獨特視角：相較於晚期帝制和毛澤東時代，現代中國更像一個以特殊非民主方式運作的“疆域大國”。该著作的第一卷覆盖1895-1976年时段，以民主与国家为核心，分析了三个主要的政治构建时期：1895年起，世界帝國政治形態的危機導致對政治的重新定義，推動了民主的制度化；在接下來的1915至1925年，新的政治理念強調主體的積極性，催生了“積極民主”；最後在1926至1976年，毛澤東以其“分裂者”的策略，通過廣泛的群眾鬥爭來消解傳統權威，進而穩固其政治地位。

Fern von Geschichte und verheißungsvollen Tagen. Neoklassizistische Cyberlyrik im ChinaNetz und die Schreibweise des Lizilizilizi (2000-2020) by Frank Kraushaar

Sara Landa — 2023-12-26

Fern von Geschichte und verheißungsvollen Tagen. Neoklassizistische Cyberlyrik im ChinaNetz und die Schreibweise des Lizilizilizi (2000–2020)

Frank Kraushaar

Bochum/Freiburg: projektverlag, 2022. 355 pp.
ISBN: 9783897335608

Sinophone Utopias: Exploring Futures Beyond the China Dream edited by Andrea Riemenschnitter, Jessica Imbach, and Justyna Jaguscik

Nicola Spakowski — 2023-12-26

Sinophone Utopias: Exploring Futures Beyond the China Dream

Andrea Riemenschnitter, Jessica Imbach, and Justyna Jaguscik, eds.

Amherst, New York: Cambria Press, 2023. 484 pp.
ISBN: 9781621966463

Study Gods. How the New Chinese Elite Prepare for Global Competition by Yi-Lin Chiang

Bart Dessein — 2023-12-26

Based on an ethnography and interviews with 28 socioeconomically elite students, their parents and their teachers in Beijing over a period of 7 years (2012–2019), Yi-Lin Chiang, in the present book, describes four types of students: ‘study gods’ (xueshen), ‘studyholics’ (xueba), ‘underachievers’ (xuezha), and ‘losers’ (xueruo). She shows how 'study gods' and 'studyholics' are important factors in status reproduction on a global scale.

《學神：中國精英教育現場一手觀察》一書的研究對像是二十八位來自北京社會經濟精英階層的學生、家長和老師。書中資料來源於薑以琳2012年至2019年七年間積累的民族志研究和訪談記錄。作者在書中描述了四種類型的學生：“學神”、“學霸”、“學渣”和“學弱”，探討“學神”和“學霸”如何為全球競爭做準備，如何在競爭中勝出，從而使自己始終處於高位。

Ende der China-Illusion. Wie wir mit Pekings Machtanspruch umgehen müssen

Andreas Fulda — 2023-12-27

This German-language popular science book entitled 'End of the China illusion. How we must deal with Beijing's power ambitions' comes at a pivotal time (please note that all following translations from German to English are my own). Written by Janka Oertel, Director of the Asia programme and a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, this book is certain to contribute to an increasingly lively public debate in Germany about how to best engage with autocracies. In the academic discourse John Lough's Germany's Russia Problem or Hamilton and Ohlberg's Hidden Hand: Exposing How the Chinese Communist Party is Reshaping the World have previously shed light on the various challenges emanating from Putin's Russia and Xi's China. In her book, Oertel aims to dispel common misconceptions about China, which she calls the 'China illusion'. Besides the Chinese Communist Party, Oertel believes western entrepreneurs, politicians, and experts also contributed to what she calls the 'myth of modern China'.

《終結對中國的幻覺：我們應如何面對強勢的北京》，這本德語科普書籍的問世正逢其時。此書由歐洲對外關係委員會亞洲項目主任兼高級政策研究員揚卡 ∙ 奧特爾（Janka Oertel）撰寫，必將引發德國社會廣泛討論如何與專制國家發展關係。在學術領域，約翰 ∙ 拉夫（John Lough）的《德國的俄羅斯問題》，以及漢密爾頓（Hamilton）和奧爾伯格（Ohlberg）合著的《隱蔽的手：揭露中國共產黨如何重塑世界》已經對普京主導的俄羅斯和習近平時代的中國所帶來的挑戰進行了深入分析。西方對中國普遍存在的認知誤區，奧特爾在其著作中稱之為“中國幻覺”，並指出，構建這一“現代中國神話”的除了中國共產黨自身，還有西方商界、政界人士和學術界的專家。

Intertextual Trajectories of Remembering

Serena De Marchi — 2023-12-26

With the end of the Kuomintang’s authoritarian rule, in the late 1980s, Taiwan gradually opened to a public discussion of its own traumatic past, characterised by systematic government abuse, violent dissent suppression, and general disregard of civil and human rights. The memories of that history found ways to be expressed through a number of different media, including literature. This paper investigates two pieces of post-martial-law fiction, namely Zhu Tianxin’s “Once Upon a Time There Was an Urashima Taro” and Huang Chong-kai’s “Dixson’s Idioms”, which, in different ways and from different
authorial perspectives, elaborate on the experience of political imprisonment during the White Terror. In these texts, intertextuality is consistently used as a strategic narrative device to conjure the past into the present, and therefore constitutes a productive analytical perspective from which to look at Taiwan’s post-authoritarian literary mnemonic practices.

隨著上世紀八十年代國民黨威權統治的結束，臺灣開始公開審視人們經歷的歷史創傷，深入探討政府對權力的濫用、對異見者的暴力打壓、以及對公民權利和人權的忽視。而文學作品成為這段歷史記憶的重要載體。本文選取朱天心《想我眷村的兄弟們》中的《從前從前有個浦島太郎》和黃崇凱《文藝春秋》中的《狄克森片語》
作為研究對象。這兩篇作品在作者立場和寫作風格上雖然有所不同，但描述的都是白色恐怖時期政治犯的被囚經歷。其中，互文性被用作一種敘事手法，巧妙地將歷史融入現實，構建出一個分析臺灣後威權時代文學記憶的獨特視角。

Memories of Redress and Rehabilitation and the Narrativity of In/justice

Agnes Schick-Chen — 2023-12-26

After the end of the Cultural Revolution, many yuan’an 冤案 (unjust cases) of the Mao era were revised with the aim of reintegrating those wrongly convicted into the processes of reforms. Pingfan 平反 (redress and rehabilitation) reinstated their and their families’ social and political status, but did not address issues of individual suffering and accountability in a manner that would enable either victims or perpetrators to deal with the traumatising experiences of the past. Film provided a forum to reflect on the lack of answers to questions left over from recent history in the immediate aftermath of the Cultural Revolution, and continued to do so in later periods. This paper traces the framing of related issues from early pingfan films, through independent documentaries of the noughties, to a 2014 film about the transitional period. It identifies three narratives of justice unachieved pervading the memory-scape of China’s transition: the impossibility of achieving justice through procedurality, the impossibility of doing justice to the former selves of those affected by trauma, and the impossibility of providing them with the acknowledgment and explanation they would have needed to overcome the inconceivability of the injustices endured. The finding of an interrelationship between memory frames, discourses on newly embraced politico-legal concepts and perceptions of persistent socio-political problems leads to the conclusion that the conditions of (not) coming to terms with the past have been formed by and had an impact on the development of Chinese political culture from late 20th to early 21st century.

文化大革命結束後，中國政府開始大規模糾正冤假錯案，平反昭雪。儘管受害者及其家庭的社會和政治地位在一定程度上得以恢復，但關於受害者的痛苦和加害者責任的問題仍未得到全面解決，導致雙方均難以擺脫創傷的陰影。本研究通過分析電影和獨立紀錄片中的反思，探討了社會轉型的記憶景觀中關於無法申冤的三種敘事：程序正義難以實現；受創傷個體未能討回公道而難以釋懷；曾經的自我認同難以重塑。此外，研究發現，記憶敘事與圍繞新政法概念和社會政治問題的討論之間存在著一定的關聯。研究顯示，從改革開放初期至21世紀初，中國政治文化的發展與冤案當事人能否面對過去之間存在相互影響的關係，進一步揭示了政治文化發展與歷史處理方式之間深刻的內在聯繫。

From Artist Enclave to Living Urban Heritage

Fabienne Wallenwein — 2023-12-26

At the end of the 1990s, the Asian financial crisis severely unbalanced real estate development mechanisms in Shanghai’s former Luwan district that strongly relied on foreign direct investment. This momentary interruption created a unique opportunity for a long time unconsidered mixed-use urban block at the margins of the former French Concession, nowadays known as Tianzifang, to experiment with regeneration approaches that deviated from conventional “old city renewal” (jiucheng gaizao 舊城改造). Partly responding to Shanghai’s aspirations to become a “global city”, the focus was set on culture and its creative potential that enabled a multifunctional framing of the block as creative industry park, tourist destination, and ultimately a protected scenic block in Shanghai’s conservation system. The paper investigates which aspects of cultural heritage have (or have not) been mobilised at which particular stage of Tianzifang’s place-making process, thereby shedding light on specific mechanisms in dealing with material culture and memory in a Chinese urban context. What broader implications did this uncommon approach have for the formation of heritage conceptualisations such as industrial and intangible heritage? Proceeding from a constructivist approach that allows for a comprehensive analysis of socially and politically negotiated layers of meaning, the study examines how spatial environments are bound to notions of history and identity. Relevant aspects during these processes of authentication and revalorisation that the paper finds are artist-led spatial interventions, the practice of naming, an emphasis on the use value of industrial heritage, and an expansion of the notion of Shanghai nostalgia to include local-style shikumen lilong 石庫門里弄 housing.

20世紀90年代末，亞洲金融危機導致上海原盧灣區重度依賴外資的房地產發展模式遭受衝擊。這給位於前法租界邊緣、一直被忽視的田子坊，帶來獨特的發展空間。與常規的舊城改造不同，田子坊的發展更注重其文化價值和創新潛力的挖掘，逐步成為創意產業高地和旅遊亮點，且被納入上海歷史風貌保護體系。本文旨在深入解析田子坊如何策略性地調動和維護其文化遺產，探討對物質文化與集體記憶、工業遺產與非物質遺產的理解。借助建構主義視角，文章進一步分析空間環境與歷史和身份的交織關係，探析藝術介入城市空間、命名策略，以及石庫門式的“上海懷舊”，對田子坊的認知重塑和價值提升起到的關鍵作用。

Playing with Liquid Fire

Joanna Krenz — 2023-12-26

This article traces multiple connections between contemporary Chinese rural migrant workers’ poetry (dagong shige) and the classical poetry tradition. In part one, the author investigates explicit allusions to traditional poetry in the form and content of workers’ poems, asking how and why dagong poets actively seek connection with the literary past and strive to remap it onto the psychological and social-political matrices of their own existence. Emphasis is placed on the communitarian aspect of poetry on the one hand and its transcendental qualities on the other. Self-inscription into poetry tradition is discussed as a powerful manifestation of workers’ full-fledged participation in the cultural, intellectual, and spiritual heritage of the nation and of humankind at large. Part two focuses on less tangible structural resonances between classical poetry and rural migrants’ verse, construing the latter as a natural continuation of what is deemed the “lyric-toward-the-epic” tradition of Chinese poetry as distinct from the “epic-toward-the-lyrical” Western tradition. Rereading the classical poetry tradition through dagong poetry, the article hopes to demonstrate the literary-critical and literary-philosophical potential of migrant workers’ artistic output in understanding (Chinese) poetry and as a factor that may contribute to a possible paradigm shift in its vast universe.

本文旨在探究當代中國農民工詩歌（打工詩歌）與中國古典詩歌傳統之間的多重關聯。在第一部分，作者考察了農民工詩歌在結構和主題上是否存在對傳統詩歌的直接暗示。通過論述詩歌的社群特點和超驗屬性，文章探討了打工詩人如何一方面有意識地延續文學傳統，同時又基於自身的心理和社會政治環境，對這一傳統進行新的詮釋和重構。打工詩人通過將自身融入詩歌傳統，展現了他們在傳承中國乃至全球文化、知識和精神遺產方面的參與意識。文章第二部分側重於古典詩歌與打工詩之間草蛇灰線的結構關聯。打工詩歌被視為中國詩歌"從抒情走向敘事"傳統的自然延續，這與西方的“從敘事走向抒情”形成鮮明對比。本文通過打工詩歌重拾古典詩歌傳統，旨在展示農民工藝術創作在文學批評和文學哲學方面的內在潛力，並探討這些作品如何有助於在更廣闊領域中實現潛在的範式轉變。

Translating the Cryptic “East”

Yulia Dreyzis — 2023-12-26

This paper presents an analysis of the interaction between classical Chinese poetry and its Russian translation during the long 20th century through the manifold ways in which translational representations participate in relentless reinterpretation, rethinking, and re-signification. This historical instantiation of the eternal tension between “domesticating” and “foreignising” translations allows a closer look at the strategies exploited by the majority of their Russian creators. Poet-translators of the Belle Époque set the tone for producing “readable” translations oriented towards the regnant literary and cultural norms of their target audience. Presenting a part of the significant avant-garde trend of reinterpreting the cryptic “East”, their taste for using Chinese imagery and poetic principles as a manifestation of cultural transfer was reinforced by translations of Chinese literature by Russian Sinologists published most actively during the 1940s–1960s. Their task was formulated as a cultural objective of producing a familiarised, “fluent” text based upon “the translator’s invisibility”. Their versions were addressed to a reader who acted within the framework of the national/cultural tradition, and who was forced to reckon with this tradition. Then the pendulum swung the other way, producing highly de-familiarised translations of traditional Chinese poetry by contemporary Russian poets within a more nuanced approach that still awaits interpretation.

本文通過對不同翻譯策略的考察，探析20 世紀中國古典詩詞與其俄文譯本的互動關係。文章基於“歸化”與 “異化”兩種翻譯理念之間的內在張力，探討俄文譯者在長期的翻譯實踐中如何解讀原文並定位其譯文。19 世紀末至20 世紀初，美好年代的詩人譯者更傾向於順應本土文化和文學傳統，追求譯文的流暢性和“可讀性”。他們在翻譯中移植了華夏詩學原則和異域文化意象，成為揭開東方神秘面紗的先鋒派。1940–1960 年間的俄羅斯漢學家再接再厲，致力於創作與本土文化傳統相兼容、自然流暢且無明顯翻譯痕跡的譯本。然而，到20 世紀末，俄羅斯詩人中開始出現一種完全不同的翻譯風格。他們譯介中國古典詩詞時採用較為疏離且脫離傳統的手法。這種新型翻譯風格對於拓展解讀視角的價值仍有待進一步探討。

“Never has there been a flood greater than this”

Erling Agøy — 2023-12-26

From the perspective of collective climate memories, this paper examines how people in the 17th century (1600–1700) in the Jiangnan region of East China related to climate history. This was a century of political and climatic upheavals, affected by a worldwide gradual turn to colder and more unstable weather which included memorable events. Did people have any awareness that the climate was changing around them? I demonstrate that there existed a well-developed tradition of climate history stretching back at least several hundred years. But to speak of a concept of changing climates in Late Imperial China is trickier. A basically stable climate subject only to short-term changes (often linked to the moral actions of rulers and others) was generally assumed in Chinese culture and found various expressions in local customs. Nevertheless, through examining not only the long-standing cultural perceptions of whether it was possible for the climate to change, but also such topics as observed changes in the landscape and fauna, perennial disasters and unprecedented calamities, disasters in ancient history (with all the preceding being possibly expressions of a changeable climate) and individual perceptions, we can attain a more nuanced image of how changeable the climate was in the thoughts of the 17th-century Chinese. In these years we can find those who thought a changing climate impossible, while the Kangxi emperor provides a counter-example of someone who was finely attuned to changes in weather patterns.

十七世紀，全球變冷和天氣不穩定引發過極端氣候事件。本文通過研究對氣候的群體記憶，探討十七世紀中國江南地區的人民對氣候環境的感知。研究顯示，對氣候的探索在明清時期已沉澱了豐富的歷程，但對現代語境中「氣候變化」的認知卻與目下有所不同。根據中國傳統觀念和風俗，氣候總體上比較穩定，若有異象也是暫時的，通常是天子德行所致。然而，通過查閱有關天災人禍的記載、考察自然景觀和生態的變遷、追蹤人們在文化和個體層面的感知，我們更為細緻地探察到十七世紀中國人對「氣候可變性」的理解。儘管當時普遍認為氣候是穩定不變的，但也有人對天氣變化表現出高度敏感，例如康熙皇帝。歷史上的治亂興衰與氣候之間是否也存在一定關聯呢？

Japanese Gozan Monks and Hangzhou’s West Lake

Xiaolin Duan — 2023-12-26

During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Japanese monks traveled to Hangzhou and spent time around West Lake. At the time, Hangzhou was known for hosting five temples among the imperially recognised “Five Mountains and Ten Monasteries”. During their stay in Hangzhou, Japanese monks communicated with local monks and scholars, wrote poems, and observed the monasteries. Diagrams of the Five Mountains and Ten Temples, which details the temples’ architecture and furniture styles, was later referred to in constructing the Japanese Buddhist system. At the same time, these monks rendered their sightseeing experience in poems, circulating words about the lake’s scenic beauty. Place names around the lake frequently appeared in poetry gatherings, and more poems were composed for paintings about the lake. The lake became a cultural trope within and beyond the Gozan literature, featuring iconic place names, visual culture, and multilayered mobility in real and imagined dimensions. The example of West Lake in Gozan culture offers a case study for cultural appropriation and the role that landscape appreciation can play in this process. Locations were crucial in trans-cultural appropriations. Specific places serve as anchored loci for organising and systemising a developing body of cultural knowledge.

在十二、十三世紀，杭州的“五山十刹”吸引了眾多日本僧侶踏訪。這些僧侶不僅與杭州的文人墨客及寺內高僧交流切磋，還對寺廟的建築藝術和管理規制展開深入的考察。他們帶回日本的《五山十剎圖》詳細描繪了杭州寺廟的建築風格和內部裝飾，還配有讚美西湖美景的詩文。本文旨在探討在日本五山文化圈中，杭州西湖及其標誌性地名和視覺文化特徵如何被構建成一種獨特的文化意象。文章還將分析日本僧侶經由“百聞不如一見”的親身體驗，如何多維度地感受和融入這一文化意象。筆者認為，五山文化中的西湖可視為文化挪用和景觀審美的經典實例。作為文化傳遞的核心媒介，特定的景觀會逐步成為文化認知的焦點。與此同時，跨文化的交流與互鑒，也為山水意象注入情感深度，對地標性景觀意象的確立具有決定性影響。

Cultural Memory of Early Tang China in the Qunshu zhiyao

Kelly Ngo — 2023-12-26

The Qunshu zhiyao 群書治要 (Essentials for bringing about order from assembled texts) is a compilation of statecraft writings that was imperially commissioned by and for the Tang emperor Taizong 太宗 (598–649) near the inception of his Zhenguan 貞觀 reign (r. 624–649). It is one of the earliest extant anthologies in China designed to educate a ruler in cultivating an ethical character and governing the state. As its title suggests, the Essentials articulates a distinctive political philosophy through its collection of excerpts drawn from canonical, historical, and masters writings, and from their commentaries. Although this period of Chinese history has attracted scholarly attention in the fields of politics, history, and culture, the Essentials seems to have largely eluded Occidental researchers and there is to date no complete translation into any European language. This article explores the Essentials’ corpus of excerpted materials through the lens of cultural memory, as theorised by Jan and Aleida Assmann since the late 1980’s. In particular, the circumstances surrounding the production of the Essentials are analysed through the institutional communication, reconstruction of cultural knowledge, and binding nature elements of cultural memory theory. The findings shed light on both the Essentials as a cultural memory text of the Zhenguan era and the nature of political discourse during that period of early Tang China.

唐太宗於貞觀初期下令編纂的資政典籍《群書治要》，是君王乃至輔臣和各級官吏修身、治國、平天下的教科書，是中國現存最早的匡政著作之一。正如書名所示，《群書治要》通過摘選經典、史書、諸子百家以及相關注疏的治國理政精華，來闡述獨特的政治哲學。初唐時期的政治、歷史和文化，受到學者的廣泛關注，但《群書治要》在西方的研究中似乎鮮有涉及，至今尚未有完整的外文譯本。本文通過揚·阿斯曼（Jan Assmann）和阿萊達·阿斯曼（Aleida Assmann）自1980年代以來提出的文化記憶理論，分析《群書治要》輯錄的內容。文章以文化記憶理論中的三大要素：機構化的關聯、文化的重構性及集體認同的凝聚性為切入點，對《群書治要》的成書歷史背景進行深入的解讀。研究不僅闡明《群書治要》作為貞觀時期文化記憶文本的特點，同時也揭示初唐時期政治語境的本質。

(Re-)Remembering A Silla Scholar’s Uncanny Experience in Tang China

Yun Zhu — 2023-12-26

This paper examines a Chinese-language tale about the Silla scholar Ch’oe Ch’iwŏn (857–?), who spent about sixteen years in China, studying for — and then passing — the imperial civil service examinations and working as a Tang government official, before returning to Silla. In this uncanny story about Ch’oe’s alleged encounter with two beautiful female ghosts in Lishui and his epiphany from the experience, the obscure, sensualised, and aestheticised imagery of the Tang southland undergoes a contested process of transcultural remapping and various cross-spatial, cross-temporal, and cross-ideological re-envisionings. Through a contextualised close reading of the story, my paper aims to contribute to the understanding of the dynamics, fluidity, and paradoxes of cultural memories, which, in the case of the tale about Ch’oe, continue to evolve even in our own time.

本篇論文以新羅赴唐學者崔致遠（857–？）在溧水與“仙女”相遇的漢文傳奇故事為考察對象。崔致遠在唐生活約十六年，期間學習、應考、供職，之後回到新羅。故事中，在於情慾層面及審美層面上皆具迷濛並迷人氣質的江南之地，崔致遠偶遇一雙早已去世的美麗姊妹，並由此獲得頓悟。文本中唐代的南方之地經歷不同面向上的重新想像和構建，穿越時空與意識形態的諸多界線。通過置於歷史背景之中的文本細讀，本文旨在加深對於文化記憶所具有的豐富性、流動性及矛盾性的理解。在崔致遠故事的案例中，這些特性直至今日仍在繼續發展之中。

JEACS Volume 4 (2023)

Compiled by Qin Sun — 2023-12-26

Of Sinology and Identity

Georgijs Dunajevs — 2023-12-26

The Latvian scholar Pēteris Šmits represents a unique case in the national Sinologies of Europe, having been the only specialist of Chinese and Manchu studies in his home country during his lifetime. Unable to establish a sinological tradition, Šmits is far better known in Latvia for his studies in Baltic languages and folklore. Despite juggling two research careers in parallel, Šmits saw himself primarily as a Sinologist, and his dedication to studying China became the cornerstone of his identity. In this essay, I summarise Šmits’ contribution to scholarship on China during the three distinct periods of his life and work, in Beijing (1896–1899), Vladivostok (1899–1920), and Riga (1920–1938). Relying on Šmits’ thoughts and views found in his unpublished autobiography and other lesser-known sources, I also contemplate his position as a scholar of China through the various historical periods and regions he lived in, offering a reflection on the issues of cultural and professional alienation, common in the field of Chinese studies.

拉脫維亞學者彼得 · 施密特（Pēteris Šmits）在歐洲漢學領域中獨樹一幟，曾是拉脫維亞唯一的漢學和滿學專家。由於未能創建漢學機構，他對波羅的海語言和民俗的研究在拉脫維亞更為人知。儘管如此，施密特始終堅守漢學家的身份，對中華文化的深入研究成為其學術生涯的核心。本文回顧了施密特在北京（1896–1899）、海參崴（1899–1920）及裡加（1920–1938）三個階段的學術貢獻，並基於其未公開的自傳和其他資料，探討了他在不同歷史和地域背景下對中國問題的學術立場，並對漢學研究中的文化與專業分隔現象進行了反思。

List of PhDs Defended at European Institutions in 2022-2023

Compiled by Marie Bizais-Lillig — 2023-12-26

List of PhDs Defended at European Institutions in 2022-2023

Compiled by Marie Bizais-Lillig

Revisiting Culture and Memory

Frank Kraushaar — 2023-12-26

This volume's research articles collectively explore the interplay of past, present, and future in various Chinese and Sinophone socio-cultural contexts, emphasizing the connections between memory and culture. They prompt a reevaluation of cultural, technological, and political changes amid an epochal shift, highlighting China and the Sinophone sphere's growing role in reshaping the global landscape. Commemoration, reminiscence, memory's role in cultural transitions, and its impact on literature and modern translations of classical poetry are integral to these cultural transformations, continually shaping our self-awareness and existence in the world.

本期探討在中國和華語文化中過去、現在和未來的交互關係，揭示記憶與文化之間的內在聯繫。文章重新審視時代變遷對文化、技術和政治的影響，突顯了中國和華語地區在塑造全球格局中日益重要的角色。記憶、回憶和紀念是文學翻譯和文化轉型不可或缺的要素，同時也不斷塑造著人們的自我認知和存在感。