Info

Chinese Literature Podcast

Lee Moore talks about Chinese Literature.
RSS Feed
Chinese Literature Podcast
2024
March
February
January


2023
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2022
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2021
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2020
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
January


2019
December
November
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2018
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2017
December
November
October
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2016
December
October
August
June
May
April


All Episodes
Archives
Now displaying: Page 6
Jan 15, 2021

Here it is: part one in our new series! We're discussing the definitive writers of each decade in China's 20th century. Along the way, you'll get a mini tour of modern Chinese history, and see how literature played a part in its development. 

This week? See how Wang Guowei and Wu Jianren were the writers who defined the last imperial decade in Chinese history.

Dec 25, 2020

We said we'd post something on the 24th, didn't we? And here it is. Just a friendly chat about some of the things that have changed for the podcast, and for us as podcasters and scholars. 

Jun 27, 2020

Today, we have a guest, Antonio Leggieri on the podcast to talk about his phd research on the late imperial novel Guzhang Juechen. 

 

 

Apr 18, 2020

The 三字經, usually translated as the Three Character Classic, is a fascinating text because it functions like a "my first Confucian text." Children were given this text when they were quite young and asked to memorize the book, teaching them moral lessons that would prepare them to master the real Confucian classics later in life. In this episode, Rob and Lee debate the first few lines of the poem.

Just a note: we recorded this in 2018, and then we added a prologue to the front end of the podcast.

Jan 5, 2020

Today, Rob is off doing research in China, so Lee interviews Professor Van Norden. Professor Van Norden is a philosophy professor at Vassar, and he works on early Chinese philosophical texts.

He recently published a textbook for learning Classical Chinese (文言文). The book is the outgrowth of Professor Van Norden's teaching, and he seeks to make Classical Chinese more approachable than do other textbooks on the language. Professor Van Norden and Lee discuss his book and wider issues related to early Chinese texts.

Dec 11, 2019

Yu Dafu is an early 20th Century writer known for one work: Sinking. This novella is highly autobiographical, and it discusses the trials and tribulations of a Chinese student living in Japan. His attitude towards Japanese women and the Chinese nation is both fascinating and disturbing, and Rob and Lee dive into those attitudes. This is the last of our series on Toxic Masculinity in Chinese Literature. 

Nov 11, 2019

The Fourth in our series on Toxic Masculinity, this is the story of a man whose wife is sleeping around, a man who is not doing a good job of taking care of his father, a man who, at least in a pre-modern Chinese context, is not a man at all. Upon learning that his wife has tricked him, Ren mans up, going on a murderous rampage, killing his wife, her lover, her parents and her maid, and thus restoring his masculinity. Does this story endorse this violent act? Or is it being ironic? That and more in another Moore debate on this episode of the Chinese Literature Podcast. 

Aug 9, 2019

The Water Margin, or the 水浒传 (shui hu zhuan) is one of the novels from the Ming Dynasty that we can point to as the origin of much of the Kung Fu tradition. It is the story of 108 dudes (I'm being technical here). They live outside of the boundaries of the urban Chinese world, just on the edge of civilization. The government is corrupt, so they have formed their own gang. They live by a code, brotherhood and revenge, and they kill anyone who gets in their way, including each other. This is the second in our series on toxic masculinity.

Jul 8, 2019

Today Brandon joins Rob and Lee for one of the weirdest stories that they have ever done. The "Biography of Lord As-You-Like-It" is a work of Ming Dynasty porn that discusses the only Empress to ever rule China, the Tang empress Wu Zetian. In this pornographic work, the idea of feminine rulership is equated with sexual promiscuity, and, according to the pornographic story, the only way to solve the problem of political illegitimacy/sexual promiscuity is for Wu Zetian to submit, both politically and sexually, to a man with a giant penis. This work of pornography is fascinating from a feminist perspective, because it makes the nexus between power and gender explicit. It is also important to literary scholars because it is one of the predecessors to the pornographic novel Jin Ping Mei, the Plum in the Golden Vase. 

Jun 3, 2019

We are posting this podcast on June 4th, 2019, the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. We have decided to focus on a song (which is just a poem, after all) that was performed for the protesters in the Square and that became the anthem ofr the movement that, thirty years ago, briefly lit a path for Chinese democracy, before being snuffed out so brutally. 

May 3, 2019

Modern Chinese Literature begins with the May 4th Movement. Well, that's according to the orthodox understanding of Chinese literature promoted by the CCP in China. Either way, May 4th, 1919 was a turning point both in Chinese society and in Chinese literature.

It was during and after this date that Lu Xun wrote some of his most important pieces of fiction. Those works came together in a book Warcry (呐喊) which is one of the monumental works in Chinese literature. The preface to that book, our subject today, is the most talked about part of that work. Today, on the 100th anniversary of the May 4th movement, we think about Lu Xun, his preface to Outcry and how we still hear echos of the work today.

1 « Previous 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next » 9