Honors Send Off 2016

Witt, Brad, Helen Huiwen Zhang, Sarah, Walker

Revenge (update 20151107)

Revenge

Lu Xun, Dec 20, 1924

Translation by Huiwen Zhang, 2014; last update Nov 7, 2015

¹ Human skin’s thickness, probably less than a millimeter; scarlet hot blood spreads just beneath it, through vessels even more dense than the densely layered silkworms that crawl up a wall, surging, radiating warmth.  Thus with this warmth each bewitches, incites, and tugs the others, with all its might desiring to cuddle, kiss, and embrace, so as to gain life’s sinking, intoxicated Euphoria.

² But if using a sharp dagger, only one thrust, to pierce through this peach-toned tenuous skin, the scarlet hot blood will spray a torrent of arrows and with all its warmth immediately flood the slaughterer; then, to touch him with icy breath, show him pale lips, will cause him to lose all humanity and gain life’s soaring, climactic Euphoria; as for the slaughtered, he himself will be perpetually immersed in life’s soaring, climactic Euphoria.

³ This way, therefore, there are two of them, stark naked, pinching daggers, standing opposite each other in the vast wilderness.

⁴ The two of them about to embrace, about to slaughter….

⁵ Passing men from all around swarm in, densely layered, like silkworms crawling up a wall, like ants yearning to haul away a cured fish head.  Clothes all pretty, hands however empty.  Yet from all around swarming in, with all their might stretching necks out, yearning to savor and scrutinize this embrace or slaughter.  They already foresense the fresh taste of sweat or blood after the event on their own tongues.

⁶ Yet the two of them stand opposite each other in the vast wilderness, stark naked, pinching daggers, yet not embracing, not slaughtering, not even showing an intention to embrace or slaughter.

⁷ The two of them remain this way ’til eternity, robust limber bodies already about to wither, yet not even showing the slightest intention to embrace or slaughter.

⁸ The passing men thus become bored, feel the boredom burrowing into their pores, feel the boredom burrowing out of their own hearts through their pores, crawling all over the wilderness, and then again burrowing into the others’ pores.  They thus feel throats and tongues dry, necks weary, so that in the end they face one another in blank dismay and slowly disperse, even feeling so withered as to lose life’s interest.

                  ⁹ Thus left behind is only the vast wilderness, while the two of them in it, stark naked, pinching daggers, stand withered—with the gaze of the dead savoring and scrutinizing the passing men’s witheredness, bloodless slaughter, while perpetually immersed in life’s soaring, climactic Euphoria.

I THANK my students of CHIN 3143 Fall 2015 for their suggestions: Marshall Cornet, Savanna DeWeese, Justin Dussold, Madison Reid, and Kyle Wipfli.

　

Wild Grass: Inscription [2015 Oct]

Wild Grass: Inscription

Translation by Huiwen (Helen) Zhang, 2011

Last Update: Oct 18 2015[1]

When I sink in silence, I feel whole; I will open my mouth . . . and at once feel empty.

The past life has already died.  Upon this death I hold Euphoria, because through this I know it once existed.  The dead life has already decayed.  Upon this decay I hold Euphoria, because through this I know it is not yet empty.

Life’s mud abandoned on the ground, bares no lofty trees, only wild grass—this is my sin.

Wild grass, of roots not deep, of flowers and leaves not pretty, yet draws in dew, draws in water, draws in long-dead blood and flesh, plundering each for its own existence.  In existence, it will all the same suffer trampling, suffer mowing, until death and decay.

But I am peaceful, cheerful.  I will laugh aloud, I will sing a tune.

I love my wild grass, but I loathe the wild grass-decorated ground.

Earthen blaze paths beneath the ground, surging; once lava erupts, it will incinerate all wild grass, as well as lofty trees, thus nothing is left even to decay.

But I am peaceful, cheerful.  I will laugh aloud, I will sing a tune.

Heaven and earth are so solemn, I cannot laugh aloud and sing a tune.  Were heaven and earth not so solemn, I perhaps even then could not.  I, with this single clump of wild grass between light and dark, life and death, past and future, dedicated to friend and foe, man and beast, loved and unloved, testify.

For myself, for friend and foe, man and beast, loved and unloved, I hope for the death and decay of this wild grass blazing fast to come.  Else, I never would have even existed.  This would truly, compared to death and decay, be more tragic.

Go then, wild grass, with my inscription!

April 26, 1927

Lu Xun, Inscribed at White Cloud, Guangzhou

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[1] I THANK my students of CHIN 3143 Fall 2015 for their suggestions: Marshall Cornet, Savanna DeWeese, Justin Dussold, Madison Reid, and Kyle Wipfli.

Recoding and Reinventing Theories

ACLA 2016 (Harvard) CFP

http://www.acla.org/seminar/recoding-and-reinventing-theories/

Recoding and Reinventing Theories

Organizer: Nicoletta Pireddu, Georgetown University

Co-Organizer: Helen (Huiwen) Zhang, University of Tulsa

              This panel addresses critical literary and cultural issues by investigating theories beyond the framework of particular schools of thought or ideologies.  We focus on instances of recodification and reinvention of terms, concepts, and approaches that are essential to literary and critical theories, such as close reading, ethical translation, cultural hermeneutics, creative reception, and comparative criticism.  We strive to foster robust and impactful discussion on ways of moving theory forward through a synergy of tradition and innovation—

What is truly new in theory?
What is the purpose of new techniques and methods?
Is it possible to decontextualize notions and ideas and graft them into new frames of reference?
Is theoretical bricolage a viable strategy?
What do we gain by recoding, reviving, or reinventing ‘traditional’ theories?
How do we manage resistance to change in theories and handle critical reactions to technical, terminological, and conceptual innovations?

              We welcome papers that, independently of their research objects, demonstrate a sustained philosophical or (meta)theoretical reflection upon their own analytical tools—ideally with evidence of reinterpreting particular concepts and their scope.

Lu Xun Discussion Forum

Concealment & Revelation

Original Opening Remarks (Jan 2013):
      Welcome to the Open Discussion Forum—the online companion to our Reading Club (founded in Spring 2013) dedicated to Lu Xun, China’s most original and profound thinker whose ‘untimely meditations’ on modern civilization, world history, and the human condition resonate with those of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Strindberg, and Kafka and prove to be timely and timeless.  Lu Xun’s intense and idiosyncratic voice culminates in the prose poetry anthology Wild Grass.  Listed below are the 5 units of 13 prose-poems, each of which, however enveloped in a world of its own, contributes to the dialectic of concealment and revelation prevailing in Lu Xun’s writings.  Click on a title and you will be able to read the translation and interpretation and post your own comments.  Bold perspectives and experimental approaches are encouraged!
New Preface to the Reopened Forum (Nov 2014):

Huiwen (Helen) Zhang

Inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche’s idea of “philology” and William Gass’s concept of “transreading,” I employ “transreader” to suggest the integration of four roles into one: reader, translator, writer, and scholar.  Transreading recognizes the interdependence of close reading, literary translation, creative writing, and cultural hermeneutics with its concern for the broad context and ultimate goal of these intertwined activities: to transfer, transvalue, transform, and transcend the canon.  In this sense, Lu Xun and his European interlocutors are “transreaders of the canon.”  Their architecture of the modern breakthrough is a joint transfer, transvaluation, transformation, or transcendence of pre-modern canons.

This method is proven in my newly published article, “‘Translated, it is: …’—An Ethics of Transreading” (Educational Theory, Vol. 64, No. 5, 2014).  The re-opened Lu Xun Discussion Forum continues to practice and reinforce the theory of transreading by utilizing prompts.  It departs from a hypothesis: prompts are textual phenomena that simultaneously demand and enable transreading. 

As a University professor, I have incorporated my own scholarship into undergraduate courses such as “Modernization and Its Discontents,” “The Dilemma of Modernity,” “Four Faces of the Wanderer,” “The Treasure of Sorrow,” “Blessed in Translation,” “Authentic Beauty: Modern Poetry & Prose,” and “Untimely Meditations: A Chinese Perspective.”  Common to all of my courses is the combination of the concept of cross-cultural dialogue and the method of transreading.

Fall Semester 2014:

Wild Grass: Inscription [updated on Nov 14 2014] 

Revenge [updated on Nov 15 2014]

Revenge (The Second) [updated on Nov 15 2014]

Tombstone Inscription [updated on Nov 15 2014]

The Shadow's Farewell [updated on Nov 19 2014] 

 

Concepts Minted, Myths Reversed:             

Revenge I (updated tr.) (Jan 24 2013)
Revenge I (initial tr.)

Revenge II  (Jan 31 & Feb 7 2013)
Revenge II (updated tr.)

Better Hell Lost (Feb. 21 2013)

Moments of Contemplation:                                    

The Beggar (Feb. 28 2013)

Autumn Night  (Apr. 4 & 11 2013)

A Wonderful Tale ( Apr. 11 2013)

Recollections of Childhood:                                    

Snow

The Kite (Apr. 18 2013)

Confronting Midlife:                                        

A Dried Leaf

Hope (Mar. 14 2013)

Oneself as Another:                                          

Such a Warrior (Mar. 7 2013)

Trembling of Degradation Lines

In Faint Ripples of Blood (coming soon!)

Discussion Topics from Fall 2012:

Dead Fire

The Wanderer

Epitaph

Wild Grass: Dedication

The Shadow’s Farewell

The Shadow’s Farewell (German)