The concept of "world literature" has undergone continuous reconstruction, drawing global scholarly attention. Scholars like Volkmar and Damrosch highlight its deep entrenchment in Eurocentrism, with the Western literary system holding a meta-linguistic position in its discourse. However, as Western scholars adopt a more global perspective, "world literature" is shedding its Western-centric framework and evolving into a truly global construct.

With the inclusion of literary works and theories from Eastern civilizations (such as China, India, ancient Egypt, and ancient Babylon) in cross-cultural studies, the implicit Eurocentric and Western-dominant discursive power embedded in "world literature" is gradually dissolving, allowing the term to regain its intrinsic "worldly" essence. However, despite the increasing self-examination and critique of Western-centrism in world literature studies since the mid-to-late 20th century, the question of how to further reconstruct the concept of "world literature" remains an urgent issue for global scholars. Fundamentally, world literature serves as a bridge connecting literary traditions across different regions, yet its ultimate aim lies in leveraging the universal power of literature to mitigate the cultural estrangement and civilizational conflicts that have emerged over the past century. A proper understanding and interpretation of world literature can foster mutual understanding and inclusivity among civilizations.

This article argues that world literature must shift toward the epistemological paradigm of "mutual learning among civilizations." Throughout human history, civilizational exchanges have never ceased, and world literature increasingly exhibits a "multi-civilizational" nature. For instance, the intertextuality between The Homeric Epics and The Epic of Gilgamesh, the influence of Arab culture on the European Renaissance, and the presence of Eastern elements in modern Western literary theory all underscore the fundamental rule that mutual learning among civilizations drives world development. Accordingly, the study and reading of world literature should also align with this direction. This issue extends beyond literary research, generating a "domino effect" that shapes global political, economic, and cultural landscapes. While Huntington's "clash of civilizations" has influenced the geopolitical conflicts of the 21st century, in the face of the unprecedented global transformations of our time, both Chinese and international scholars must take on the responsibility of fostering civilizational harmony and mitigating conflicts. By approaching world literature through the lens of mutual learning among civilizations, scholars can expand the horizons of world literature studies, transcend cultural barriers through civilizational exchange, overcome conflicts through mutual learning, and replace notions of civilizational superiority with a vision of civilizational coexistence.

Throughout the nineteenth century, World Literature meant a view of the world from Europe, until a bidirectional East-West comparison developed in the twentieth century with figures such as Hu Shih, Lin Yutang, René Étiemble, and Earl Miner. These were often cultural comparisons between two “mighty opposites” such as China and Western Europe. The rise of globalization today gives us new opportunities to develop a variation theory of cultural interactions, both in the present and in the past. This talk will look at three examples of nonhegemonic comparison of Japanese, Chinese, and Korean works to Western counterparts, not on the basis of influence or of universal harmonies, but in terms of the writers’ responses to global economic and technological developments.

Most literary histories with a global ambition attempt to map the world, often tilted toward a European/Western perspective and written as a teamwork by individual experts on a variety of regions—and maybe originating from those regions—, each of them taking responsibility for their own linguistic and regional specialty. Often, the regional or local chapters offer little new insights for readers from that region, but useful insights for people from other parts of the world. A project along those lines follows what I will call a mapping strategy. This paper attempts to sketch an alternative, holding that world literature studies should take their point of departure in the dynamics of the mutual exchange following border crossings between cultures, localities and aesthetic forms and strategies. The example will be the recent Landscapes of Realism vols 1-2 (2021–2022) in ICLA’s series of literary histories.

Since the emergence of comparative literature, the academic description of communication relationships has been relatively single, mainly the influence relationships described by the French school. However, communication relationships are constantly changing and complex, and there cannot be only one type of communication relationship. In fact, there is still a network relationship of multiple points and lines, where multiple points refer to the plural reading list and multiple lines refer to the plural communication relationship between the reading list and specific literary texts. Specific literary texts cannot only obtain use cases or information from one book, but can also obtain use cases and information of the same word from multiple reading books, thus forming a network communication form. This requires researchers to investigate reading lists and their use cases in order to describe the scope of the communication object or communication object.

The way of signifying significance of ancient Chinese thoughts advocates “nothingness,” which is a type of poetics of “beyond language.” Ancient Chinese philosophical and literary concepts of art theory recognise the finitiness of the form to convey thoughts and feelings, thus pursuing the infinite mood or flavour beyond language in order to grasp the infinite with the finite, which becomes the major way of expressing Chinese literature and art. Some influential philosophical and poetic views of the West such as Martin Heidegger’s “reopen the question of being,” François Jullien’s poetics of “L’écart,” William Franke’s “Apophatic poetics,” or Jonathan Stalling’s “Poetics of Emptiness” come from Chinese poetics of “beyond language” that advocate expressing meanings through “nothingness.” Poetics of “beyond language” reveals the infinity of the meaning of discourse and the mobility of expression, which is related to the ultimate question of Chinese philosophy, and has profoundly influenced the way of thinking in China and the West; while expressed through literary games that fill in the blank between interpreting and being interpreted, it hits directly at the common thinking of the pursuit of truth in both China and the West, breaking through the language barrier and promoting the mutual learning of civilizations.

This article delves into the translation initiative known as the UNESCO Collection of Representative Works: Treasures of World Literature, which was launched in the post-World War II period under the auspices of UNESCO. The study explores the processes and mechanisms of world literature production in the post-war era. The article highlights that, influenced by post-war developmentalism and modernization trends, UNESCO sought to establish a system of world literature embodying a shared human spirit by selecting and translating classic works from various nations, aiming for cross-cultural exchange and world peace. However, the creation of world literary classics under UNESCO’s guidance became a realm of international cultural-political contention, revealing tensions between developed and developing countries, the West and the non-West, universal values, and cultural diversity. The production of world literature classics has always been a contentious, selective construction process reflecting the political, economic, ideological, and cultural power structures of different eras.

“Palindrome” represents a unique literary form in China, characterized by its playful nature, with a long history and profound influence. Starting from the translational variations of the English term “palindrome,” this paper first expounds the pictographic nature of palindrome poems’ forms and structures, rich variety of genre and diversity of thematic meanings. On this basis, it focuses on most critical work within the sequence of Chinese palindrome poetry: Su Hui’s Xuan Ji Map. This paper briefly outlines its creative background and its significance in the developmental history of Chinese palindrome poetry, as well as the attention and research it has garnered in Anglo-American academia. Emphasizing Michèle Métail’s Wild Geese Returning, it reveals several main characteristics and patterns in the organization of Xuan Ji Map: multidirectional connectivity and nested meanings, zigzag rhyming and cross-rhyming, omitting words and borrowing words. It also addresses the connection between Xuan Ji Map and Taoist philosophy as highlighted by Métail, alongside its influence on David Hinton’s Classical Chinese Poetry, and analyze Hinton’s interpretative variations of Xuan Ji Map. Furthermore, by integrating Hinton’s understanding of Taoist and Zen philosophy, the paper analyzes the impact of Xuan Ji Map on Hinton’s spatial poetry Fossil Sky from the perspectives of intrinsic thought and compositional strategies, highlighting the playful significance of Xuan Ji Map and its vital value in cross-cultural dialogue.

文明互鉴 situates Chinese literary tradition in a Global context, encouraging research on how it may dialogue with other traditions that have remained materially disconnected from China until recently. In that sense, 文明互鉴 may become useful methodologically to reformat “World Literature” into a mosaic of cross-civilizational case-studies concerned with mutually appropriate literary issues. After reaching scale, it would be possible to dispense with overarching narrative(s) focused on any specific tradition and its claims to influence.

Taking such a cue, I will search for common grounds between Portuguese-language and Chinese ancient literatures. There are enough parallels to postulate a degree of “poetic-cultural” equivalence between early “Cancioneiro” 歌谣集 poetry and the “Airs of the Countries” from the Classic of Poetry 《诗经·国风》. I will analyze three pairs of poems: (1) “Hum tal home sei eu, ai bem talhada” (D. Dinis, B 514, V 97) and 《周南·关雎》; (2) “Vaiamos irmana, vaiamos dormir” (Fernando Esquio, B 1326, V 932) and 《鄘风·柏舟》; (3) “Pero el-Rei há defeso” (Estevão da Guarda, B 1298, V 902) and 《魏峰·硕鼠》. Considered general differences in terms of language family, ethology and poetical-aesthetic codes, the poems are compatible in respect of form, content and theory.

My presentation has three sections. An introduction will present the theoretical references, subject matter and standards for comparison. As bureaucratic, patriarchal and agricultural societies, Middle Age Iberian Peninsula and Ancient China possess relevant common features. Such affinities foster a similar sense of what it means to “be a poet” and to “produce poetry”. They also attribute analogous social functions for poetic creations. The main section is devoted to the case-studies. First, the poems have comparable formal features, such as compositional techniques and prosodical properties. They share the same sense of orality and musicality, creating rhythm and melody through vocabular repetition. Second, regarding their content, Portuguese-language cantigas are classified under a tripartite division of themes. All three are identifiable in their Chinese counterparts: love (expressed by male or female voices) and the satirical game between parties at odds with each other. Finally, the two traditions also follow comparable theoretical frameworks. I will summarize the technical and critical standards defined in the short treatise “Arte de Trovar”, included in the Cancioneiro of the National Library, and the “Great Treatise”《毛诗·大序》, part of the textus receptus of the Classic of Poetry in the Mao tradition.

In the conclusion, I will attempt a theoretical discussion about how 文明互鉴’s methodology may become relevant to World Literature (and comparative literature as a discipline). Specifically, I will dwell on its interplay with mainstream “Theory”, concentrating on how it relates to “Postmodernity” in terms of philosophical underpinnings, political ideology and literary historiography.

Abstract: The Red Queen is one of the important works written by Margaret Drabble, a famous British contemporary writer. Focusing on intercultural communication and understanding, the three parts in the novel titled as “ancient times”, “modern times” and “post-modern times” are connected with spirit narrative. The writer’s expectation towards post-globalization era featured by mankind’s equal and harmonious living is embodied in the novel. There are two prominent ideas in the novel. One is the criticism and reflection to globalization. The other is Drabble’s understanding of cosmopolitanism. A kind of tension is formed with the two ideas to represent the contemporary reality. In the “ancient times” part, the turbulent life of the Crown Princess is narrated with the first person narrative, together with the understanding of the events at the ancient times with modern western psychological theories, medical knowledge, science and philosophical knowledge of the spirit of the Princess. The Princess, as the narrator, shows her confidence in the Korean culture with the western culture as a kind of reference. The spirit of the Princess serves as a combination of eastern and western cultures, and there is a tendency of cosmopolitanism embodied in the understanding of the culture of ancient Korea. The Princess has unique appreciation for their aesthetics. She values high on their psychological construct, too. The confidence in their culture prompts the cherish and preserving of the traditional culture. In the “modern times” part, the importance of communication and understanding is shown through several intercultural communication instances. With Dr Halliwell’s visit to Seoul as the thread, a modern woman’s family, career and private life are stated. As a substitute for the Princess, Dr Halliwell’s life shows the shared dilemma that mankind face in different times and different cultures. With the shared dilemma, mankind could find some common place and eliminate prejudices through communication. This could be traced to Drabble’s creation idea. For example, in Drabble’s another earlier novel The Middle Ground, the communication, negotiation and understanding of different cultures is an important concern, too. In the “postmodern times” part, the prospect of win-win gets its prominence based on the respect for the common character of mankind. Drabble’s expectation for post-globalization is voiced by Dr Halliwell. Different cultures could enjoy harmonious co-existence. Communication and understanding could have more innovative productivity and achieve win-win. In all, Drabble’s expectation for harmonious future for mankind is expressed with her broad international vision, delicate psychological description and superb spirit narrative skills.

The Travels of Marco Polo represents a significant document in the history of East-West cultural exchange, with its influence continuing to the present day. Through the lens of cross-cultural communication theory, this paper examines the translation history of The Travels in China, its communication characteristics, and contemporary value. The research reveals that the reception of The Travels has evolved from being valued primarily as historical documentation to becoming a paradigm of cultural exchange. Its cross-cultural communication features are manifested in three aspects: the uniqueness of observational perspective, the inclusiveness of narrative strategies, and the innovation in cultural translation. As a crucial text in early East-West cultural exchange, The Travels offers important implications for contemporary cross-cultural communication: first, communicators should maintain an open and inclusive attitude; second, communication strategies should emphasize appropriate expression of cultural differences; and third, in the digital age, cross-cultural communication requires innovative approaches and discourse systems. This study provides significant insights for understanding the communicative value of historical documents and exploring contemporary paths for cross-cultural communication.

Kafka is acknowledged by Ishiguro as one of his major literary influences, but their relationship has not been closely verified. The archive of Ishiguro’s manuscripts and papers in the Harry Ransom Center in Austin houses Ishiguro’s extensive notes on Kafka’s works, revealing his fascination with Kafka’s The Trial (1925). This article explores Ishiguro’s unpublished essays and critical notes about Kafka’s narrative techniques, and his millennial novels adapting Kafka’s tactics with the new mode of imagination altered by contemporary visual media, such as photographs and film, to reflect on the dialogues and interactions of writers between cultures based on such media specificity. Referring to the archives of the Ishiguro Papers, I argue that reading and thinking about Kafka helped Ishiguro incorporate surreal aspects of dream and memory into The Unconsoled (1995) and When We Were Orphans (2000). To support this argument, I use the coined dream narrative terms that Ishiguro identified in Kafka’s writing (such as “unwarranted emotion and relationship”, “delayed recognition”, “weird placing and venues”, and “normalization of the oddity”) to cross-examine Ishiguro’s two novels with Kafka’s The Trial to show how Ishiguro experiments and gradually founds his characteristic “appropriation” technique by adding more filmic elements to the Kafkian dream language. The result of such combination is a new world literature that reaches far to readers from all civilizations. Through his profound reading and transmedia adaptation of Kafka, Ishiguro reconstructs world literature. It also bears testimony to Kafka’s great legacy to world literature.

Art history is a form of cultural identity that records philosophical reflections of different cultures, from external appearances to inner worlds. It needs to factually and objectively reflect various artistic genres from different geographical and ethnic origins, as well as their histories of transformation and logics of development. However, from epistemic structures, discursive logics to rhetorical methods, the writing of world art history is subject to the sustained influence of Western-centrism. Although the emergence of a global art historiographical approach in the second half of the 20th century made room for non-Western art in the canonical art history, simply fixing and mending art history will not suffice in transforming the well-established academic paradigm of Western art historiography. To write an art history that accurately reflects the varying artistic profiles, historical genealogies and processes of transformation from different parts of the world, it's necessary to depart from an objectivist art history, to put an emphasis on cultural exchanges, and to construct discursive rules and narrative systems with national artistic characteristics.

Translation serves as a potent remedy for the exchange of heterogeneous civilizations and stands as a crucial bridge connecting indigenous literature with the global literary growth. Contemporary Chinese literature, as an integral component of world literature, continues its connection with world literature through the variation inherent in translation, actively participating in its construction and fostering cultural exchange, complementarity, and literary innovation and integration, during which translators are regarded as as the primary agents and intermediaries. Existing research has overlooked the role of Sinologist translators in the construction of world literature, with Carlos Rojas being a prime example. Rojas is a pivotal translator of contemporary Chinese literature who centers around the English translation of works by authors such as Yan Lianke, Yu Hua, and Jia Pingwa. It can be said that Rojas selects original texts with an eye for the global elements of contemporary Chinese literature, and his translations display a strong consciousness of world literary construction. For one thing, he pursues a translation strategy that balances the effects of defamiliarization and comprehensibility, thereby reflecting a translation philosophy that values both the artistic merit of literary works and reader awareness. For another, he strives for variation in translation strategies that entails neologism, transformation, supplementation, omission cater to the cultural aesthetic preferences of English readers while highlighting the manifestation of heterogeneous cultures, embodying his view of cultural inclusiveness. In this way, Rojas, as the eyes of the foreign, has contributed to bridging Chinese literature with world literature.

Abstract: Since ancient times, the academies in Bashu area are rich in cultural resources. The concept and practice of "making Shu with Confucianism", "taking rites as Confucianism" and "taking wind as teaching" contain rich cultural traditions and regional characteristics of value orientation. Bashu Academy is not only the preservation of traditional culture, but also an important field of academic innovation, cultural reproduction and social change. The academy attaches great importance to the academic debate and academic exchange of "understanding righteousness and principles", and allows different schools of thought to give lectures to reflect the spirit of mutual learning of a hundred schools of thought among civilizations. In particular, the "lecture" system prevalent in the Song and Ming dynasties has become an important way for the academy to give lectures and promote the development of academic culture. From the perspective of field theory, Bashu Academy is not only a place for academic education, but also a key cultural mechanism in the social reform, carrying the transformation and revival of modern and modern Chinese culture. On the basis of deeply grasping the prominent characteristics of mutual learning among civilizations, summarize the experience of producing and cultivating excellent traditional Chinese culture in Bashu Academy culture, keeping pace with The Times, promote the construction of Chinese national community, and give play to the greater role of Bashu culture in forging the consciousness of community of the Chinese nation.

Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper, an English-language travelogue by British author Fuchsia Dunlop, has garnered significant attention overseas for its portrayal of China's food, cities, customs, and culture. The book holds great importance for the international dissemination of Chinese culture, particularly its secular aspects. Current research primarily focuses on translation studies and cross-cultural communication paths, with limited exploration of its Chinese secular culture writing. However, it is this secular culture that prompted Fuchsia, as a cultural "other," to reflect deeply on cross-cultural identity, thereby facilitating a deeper spread of Chinese secular culture. This paper examines the Chinese secular culture writing in Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper, summarizing its contents and characteristics. It further explores the significance of Chinese secular culture for the overseas dissemination of Chinese culture and cross-cultural identity amidst globalization. The paper is structured into three parts: introduction, body, and conclusion. The introduction outlines the study's object, background, current research status, methodology, and significance. The main body comprises three chapters. Chapter 1 elucidates the content and value of Chinese secular culture, highlighting its practical potential for international dissemination. Chapter 2 summarizes the Chinese secular culture featured in the book, encompassing dietary culture, urban culture, and rural customs, and analyzes the cross-cultural reflections these cultures elicited in Fuchsia. Chapter 3 delves into the characteristics and cultural significance of Chinese popular culture in cross-cultural communication. At the value identity level, Fuchsia's perspective on Chinese secular culture evolved from "shock" to "recognition." In terms of cross-cultural identity, she pursued and rebuilt her self-worth through learning Chinese culture, completing a cultural root-searching journey from a globalization perspective. This process allowed her to reconfirm her cultural identity in a global context and gain self-rediscovery. The conclusion summarizes the study's findings. The paper argues that the Chinese secular culture writing in Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper underscores the unique value of secular culture in Sino-foreign exchanges, including its popularity, acceptability, broad dissemination, and two-way interaction. It stimulates the transformation of the cultural identity of the "other," deeply engaging Chinese culture in identity thinking amidst globalization. This facilitates deep-level dissemination of Chinese culture, reconfirms cultural identity in a global context, and prompts Chinese readers to reassess their cultural traditions from an external perspective. This has significant academic and practical implications for exploring the content choice and overseas dissemination path of Chinese culture.

This article collects and organizes relevant materials on the study of Lu Xun in the English-speaking world from the 1920s to the present, including English translations of Lu Xun’s works, as well as biographies, academic monographs, journal articles, and doctoral dissertations of Lu Xun in English. It also involves some literary history textbooks, selected readings, and encyclopedias related to modern Chinese literature in English, outlining the changes of Lu Xun’s images in the English-speaking world during different historical periods. On this basis, this article applies the theories of image studies, focusing on the construction of metaphorical and descriptive images. With the application of interdisciplinary methods, it sorts out images of Lu Xun in different media such as Lu Xun’s biography, translated works, academic research, and popular cultural media in the English-speaking world from the dimensions of intertextuality, context, and text. It analyzes the interaction between these images of Lu Xun and the historical, social, political, and cultural background of the English-speaking world and summarizes the common characteristics and dissemination of Lu Xun's images in the English -speaking world.

The concept of “world literature” is not only widely acknowledged as a plural and multifaceted phenomenon, but it also reflects the ongoing struggles of various nations seeking for literary and cultural influence. Proposed in the 18th century, the term “Weltliteratur” coincided with the emergence of the French comparative literature movement, often regarded as the origin of world literature studies in the French context. However, from the outset, a distinction existed between “comparative literature” and “general literature”. In the French context, the theory of “world literature” developed independently from comparative literature, initially understood as “general literature”. It was not until the 1990s that these two domains began to converge into a more integrated theoretical framework. Scholars associated with the “continental” tradition, such as Casanova, have conceptualized world literature as a dynamic and hierarchical literary field, laying the foundation for the evolution of the French notion of world literature. In contrast, the “archipelago” theory, which emerged within postcolonial discourse, focuses on the exploration of multicultural relationships and envisions a world cultural framework. Contemporary theoretical shifts in French world literature, including Glissant’s “poetics of relation”, Westphal’s “archipelago model”, and William Marx’s idea of the “world library”, reflect a distinct research paradigm that contrasts with the Anglo-Saxon approach to world literature.

This study examines the theoretical evolution of world literature within the French context, highlighting the convergence of the “continental” and “archipelago” models and their spatial dimensions. It also explores the distinctive theoretical features of French world literature, particularly in terms of its approach to theoretical construction, research methodologies, and literary historiography. Ultimately, the study seeks to deepen our understanding of French world literature theory and offer valuable insights for rethinking the broader discourse of world literature.

The study of Gabriel García Márquez’s novels has long been characterized by “Western-centrism”. When exploring the literary and cultural origins of Márquez’s novels, most of the relevant works emphasize the West over the East, especially ignoring the Arabic origins from the East. Literary research should return to historical events and focus on the facts of civilization intercommunication and the mutual influences between Eastern and Western literatures. A review of history shows that at least three threads of Arabic origin can be found in Márquez’s novels: Firstly, from the 8th to the end of the 15th century, the Arabic Empire ruled over the Iberian Peninsula in Western Europe for nearly 800 years, profoundly influencing Western literature and, with the Western colonial activities, having a far-reaching impact on Latin American literature.Secondly, since the 18th century, amidst the “Oriental craze”, Western scholars have rediscovered and translated the classical Arabic literature work “The Arabian Nights”, promoting its widespread dissemination in Latin America. Thirdly, by the end of the 19th century, a large number of Arabic immigrants flooded into Latin America, profoundly affecting local society and culture. Based on these historical threads, Márquez’s novels not only received influences from the Arabic literary tradition and classical works through the mediation of the West, but were also directly influenced by the cultural traditions and social practices of Latin American Arabic immigrants. In works such as “Cien años de soledad” and “Crónica de una muerte anunciada”,he fused the long-standing traditions of Arabic civilization with the realistic situation of the Arab community, reflecting an equal view of civilization that differs from the theory of Western superiority.

The Great Preface plays an important role in the history of Chinese literature and literary theory, but most of the current studies on it are still limited to the domestic perspective, and the translation and research status of Western academic circles have not been objectively included in the vision of domestic researchers. By means of comparative literature interpretation and variation, this paper tries to understand the current research status of The Great Preface in the western academic circles in a macroscopic way, in order to make the methods and achievements of the Western academic circles as a supplement to the domestic academic circles, and to better realize the exchange and mutual learning between the ancient Chinese literary theories represented by The Great Preface and the western literary theories on the basis of mutual learning between the Chinese and Western literary theories.

Boris Pasternak’s simultaneous translation of Faust and writing of Doctor Zhivago between 1948 and 1951 allowed the ideas and symbolism of Goethe’s work to continue and develop in his writing, thus making his literary practice a typical example of intercultural dialogue. Pasternak’s juxtaposition of Faust and Hamlet embodies the philosophical distinction between the “doer” and the “contemplative”, and is projected in Doctor Zhivago as the dual character of the protagonist Yuri Zhivago: as a doctor, he devotes himself to the realities of salvation, perpetuating Faust’s quest for the meaning of life; as a poet, he questions the violence of the revolution and inherits Hamlet’s existentialist inquiries. This duality is not a simple opposition of character, but a profound definition of the nature of the “new man” by Pasternak — a “spiritual alchemist” who seeks transcendence in contradiction.

In the second part of Faust, Wagner creates the “Homunculus” through scientific experiments, an image that symbolises Enlightenment rationality’s quest for perfect humanity, but is doomed to extinction because of its lack of human nature. In the second part of Faust, Wagner creates the “Homunculus” through scientific experiments, an image that symbolises Enlightenment rationality’s quest for perfect humanity, but is doomed to extinction because of its lack of human nature. Pasternak projected this metaphor to the Russian Revolution, which was seen as a social experiment for the birth of a “new man”, whose initial aim was to break the shackles of the old order, but was reduced to the tragedy of “Homunculus” owing to violence and alienation. Faust’s grandiose project ended in a grave, and Zhivago’s manuscripts were lost in the turmoil, suggesting that no utopian construction can escape the mockery of history. Through this ending, Pasternak criticises the revolution’s devouring of individual values and reflects on the eternal conflict between Enlightenment reason and human nature. Pasternak’s work is not only an extension of Goethe’s legacy, but also a poetic summary of the fate of Russian intellectuals in the 20th century. Through a close reading of the text and cross-cultural comparisons, this paper reinterprets the philosophical depth of Doctor Zhivago and reveals how Pasternak responds to the complexity of the Russian Revolution within the framework of a Faust-Hamlet dialogue. The thesis provides new perspectives for understanding the exchange between Russian and German literature, and is also instructive for reflecting on the dilemma of the “new man” in the context of modernity.

As a signature of socialist literature and art, the signification of the cross-cultural dissemination and reception of The White-haired Girl went beyond the work itself and affected the overall impression of socialist literature and art, and even socialism, overseas. Although reviews in English-speaking world basically recognized The White-haired Girl as a masterpiece, the cognition and acceptance of Western audience were not completely consistent with that of Chinese audiences.

This article extracts and analyzes the differences between the reviews of The White-haired Girl in the English-speaking world and the opinions of the Chinese academic circle to discern the nuances in the evolution of its meaning during its cross-cultural dissemination. When The White-haired Girl crossed culturally boundaries, the audience’s view also became spatialized. The space of current events, cultural space and meaning space endowed the cross-boundary forms different “spatialized” meanings.

During the War of Liberation, western audience viewed the work within the space of current events, understanding the current situation through the theatrical events. The spatialized viewing of the work contained at least four perspectives: viewing the performance, viewing the audience, viewing the environment and viewing themselves.

After the war, the connection between the content of the work and current events loosened, and more criticism focused on the artistic forms that provided a “sense of astonishment”. The cultural space had surpassed the space of current events to become the main factor influencing the generation of meaning. Interpreters were keen to pursue the regional significance of special forms. This was especially reflected in the comments on the new opera and the ballet, the two most innovative artistic forms of The White-haired Girl.

Compared with the rapid changing space of current events and infinitely diverse cultural space, the meaning space had a certain stability and a more profound influence on the vertical axis of time and the horizontal axis of space. Among the discourse combination of women’s emancipation, resistance against foreign aggression and class struggle in The White-haired Girl’s, the international dissemination strength of these three discourses was decreasing. The most universal discourse was women’s emancipation. “The White-haired Girl”, as an official woman imaging project in revolutionary China, became an international icon of “emancipated woman”.

When The White-haired Girl crossed cultural boundaries, it underwent a process of deterritorialization from the Chinese context and then a process of reterritorialization in the global political-cultural context. Yan’an literature and art represented by The White-haired Girl brought Western audience an impression of the forms’ “astonishment” and the content’s “shock”, transforming the Western impression of a “barbaric China” to that of a “civilized China”.

The attention to Chinese literary history in the Francophone world began in the early 20th century, when French interest in Chinese classics started to move beyond the traditional missionary Sinology perspective and ventured into the study of classical Chinese literature. Over the course of a century, major works of literary history such as G. Marguliés's two volumes of Histoire de la littérature chinoise (prose et poésie), Jacques Pimpaneau's Chine, histoire de la littérature, and ZHANG Yinde's Histoire de la littérature chinoise represent the Francophone world's comprehensive understanding of Chinese literature.

Additionally, some works focus on specific periods of Chinese literary history, such as André Lévy's la littérature chinoise ancienne et classique and la littérature chinoise moderne, and Basile Alexeiev's la littérature chinoise. These writings reflect the individual research and perspectives of French scholars on Chinese literature. All these diverse accounts of Chinese literary history are shaped by their respective historical contexts and exhibit inherent editorial frameworks.

This article aims to closely examine these accounts of Chinese literary history, uncover their underlying editorial logic, and compare them with the writing of literary history within China. By doing so, it seeks to critically reflect on the Francophone historiography of Chinese literature, fostering interaction and mutual learning between domestic and international approaches to literary history, and contributing to the construction of a scholarly system for Chinese literary history.

There has been a mass influx of traditional Chinese paintings and calligraphy into the hands of Western collectors since the 19th century. Museums， galleries and private collectors in the West have， over the centuries， built up notable collections of these works; they attracted broad interests from Western scholars， who studied in detail how such works were being collected， circulated， appreciated and appraised， forming an academic tradition in parallel with those of the Sinitic world. These studies from Western scholars， however， have yet to receive sufficient attention from their Chinese counterparts. This dissertation is thus an attempt to provide a reference on this subject for the very first time in Chinese academia， offering a systematic overview of Anglophone studies of Chinese paintings and calligraphy and examining them in specific historical contexts. It is the hope of the author that this work will motivates further research interests in the field and see more collaborative efforts between Chinese and Western scholars.

Tian is an Chinese influential perspective, carrying multiple meanings. Tian in The Analects as an important concept inherited from ancient times, has had a profound impact on Confucian thought regarding fate and the origin of the world. In translating tian in The Analects into English, translators have focused on different aspects of tian, emphasizing specific dimensions, thus resulting in a rich yet elusive translation. These interpretations can be classified into the following three dimensions:

The examination of Confucianism from a religious perspective has long intrigued Western scholars, particularly in the early stages of East-West interaction. Missionaries influenced by their understanding of religious beliefs, interpreted the transcendent concept of tian through a religious lens, focusing either on its religious or non-religious aspects. These interpretations were shaped by a faith-centered approach. Missionaries were not only introduced the concept of tian to the West but also subtly altered its understanding by associating it with the notions of Heaven&God.

The translators have also focused on presenting tian as a material dimension of the natural. This approach emphasizes tian as the sky and the natural foundation, bypassing its otherworldly connotations and instead highlighting tian as fate or natural law. But this approach did not challenge the mainstream understanding of tian as Heaven.

Since the 20C, Translators have become more focused on analyzing and restoring the meanings of East Asian classics, leading to an unprecedented dual tendency in translating complex concepts: complexification and simplification. On the one hand, translators have critically reflected on the previous reductionist interpretations of tian, recognizing that tian cannot be easily defined in simple terms, as it encompasses a broad range of meanings. As a result, translators, after analyzing the complex semantic field of tian, have chosen the simplest approach: transliterating tian to present the concept in its irreplaceable form. Whether through analyzing the implied meanings of tian or simplifying its translation, this dimension emphasizes a return to the classical text in its alienated context.

Historically, the different dimensions of tian in The Analects are not mutually exclusive but have instead been integrated. Each dimension reflects a distinct historical background that deeply influences the translator’s motivations and process. The varying purposes and methods of East&West civilizational exchange throughout history have focused on different attributes of tian, sometimes even contradictory ones. The translation of tian thus illustrates the difficult transformation of East Asian classics from the Heavenly Kingdom to the Way of Humanity from a Western perspective, while also prompting reflection on the interpretation of these texts from an East Asian viewpoint.

The sonnet has been popular in the world literature for hundreds of years and continues to add artistic vitality to contemporary lyric poetry. The sonnet, a classic poetic form that has gradually become “globalized” since its birth, has benefited from “worldwide” literary exchanges and is the result of mutual learning of civilizations. The process of generation and dissemination in the context of multi-civilization exchange and interaction has established the sonnet’s identity as world literature, and also endowed the sonnet with miraculous and highly flexible literary vitality, making it a “classic” poetic form that transcends time and space. Starting from the three dimensions of the multi-source generation of the sonnet, the global dissemination of the sonnet, and the re-examination of the history and theory of the sonnet from the world literature view of variation theory, this study attempts to reveal the previously ignored phenomenon of mutual learning of civilizations in the generation and dissemination of the sonnet, and reshape the perspective of our cognition of the sonnet.

Liu Linxi, a Literatus in the late Joseon Dynasty of Korea studied from his teacher-Li Henglao, the founder of the Huaxi School in the Joseon Dynasty, adhering to the ideas of "defending orthodoxy and rejecting heresy" and "respecting China and expelling the foreign invaders". As a general of the Righteous Army in Korea, Liu Linxi guided the struggle against Japanese aggression and national-salvation movement. And the abundant of his Chinese-style poems and essays analyzed the current affairs in East Asia. In particular, he created a large number of "Letters to Compatriots", shouting "Respect China and expel the foreign invaders", attempting to arouse the common cultural memories and common emotions of East Asians and complete the construction of his "rejecting the foreign invaders" discourse. Moreover, as an East Asian Confucian scholar, in the face of the Western military and cultural invasions in the 19th century, he borrowed the discourses of "rejecting Buddhism and Taoism" and "the debate between China and the foreign invaders " which were well-known to East Asian literati, attempting to construct an East Asian community to compete with the West, so as to maintain the subjectivity of the Korean nation and the cultural subjectivity of various East Asian countries.

Professor Cao Shunqing recently introduced the significant issue of rewriting the history of civilization, highlighting both its necessity and feasibility. This proposal has sparked scholarly debate on two key questions: Why should civilization history be rewritten? How should it be rewritten? Given the diverse cultural perspectives on civilization, this remains a complex challenge. Some scholars propose that Variation Theory offers a valuable framework for addressing this issue. This paper explores two fundamental inquiries: What theoretical foundation does Variation Theory provide for rewriting civilization history? How can its principles be practically applied? It argues that Variation Theory’s “twofold integration”—which acknowledges both civilizational continuity and the dialectical interplay of differences—establishes a robust theoretical foundation for this endeavor. On a practical level, cultural variation and heterogenization document historical civilizational exchanges and mutual learning. Rewriting civilization history through Variation Theory fosters integration through diversity, avoiding cultural assimilationism that seeks uniformity. Furthermore, the holistic thinking and mutual learning embedded in Variation Theory emphasize the importance of civilizational interactions and historical evolution. This perspective advances a more inclusive and interconnected understanding of civilization history, positioning Variation Theory as a vital theoretical and methodological guide.

Japanese arts and literature have exhibited a distinct tendency toward formalization throughout their development, with part of their formal system derived from Chinese influences. This paper takes “Shin-Gyō-Sō,” a classification originating from Chinese calligraphy that was later widely applied across various Japanese artistic disciplines, as a case study. It traces the process by which this classification, initially rooted in Chinese calligraphic styles, was integrated into Japanese culture and examines its adaptability and creative expression across different artistic fields. Finally, by revisiting the concept as a whole from both causal and consequential perspectives, the paper offers a comprehensive analysis of “Shin-Gyō-Sō.”

In the first half of the twentieth century, both the Eastern and Western worlds were in the midst of great and unprecedented changes. In the West, the rise of the workers' movement, the success of the October Socialist Revolution in Russia, and the outbreak of the two world wars provoked the left-wing intellectuals in Germany to strongly criticize capitalism, imperialism and fascism. In the East, ancient China was also experiencing the pains of quasi-colonialism and semi-feudalism. Society was in turmoil, with different political forces struggling against each other, and everyone was eager to find a new way to achieve genuine salvation and survival. Anna Seghers, as a world-renowned German anti-fascist writer of the 20th century and a famous proletarian revolutionary fighter, looked to the far east at this time, witnessing and recording the proletarian revolutionary movement and anti-fascist movement in China.

The attraction of China to Seghers in the 1920s and 1930s was undoubtedly enormous. This attraction was due to multiple reasons: firstly, she had formed a bond with China when she studied Sinology in Heidelberg and Cologne in her youth; secondly, out of her disappointment with the reality and culture of Europe at that time, she turned her attention to the East, in order to find her own spiritual way out of non-European cultural traditions and to get spiritual nourishment to inspire her empathy to solve her own dilemmas; and thirdly, it was from the same ideology of Mutual support. Because at this time the European countries were in a period of violent social upheaval, deeply mired in the quagmire of economic crisis and the horror of the fascist seizure of power. The intellectuals at this stage invariably intervened directly or indirectly in politics and in social life. Proletarian literature entered a new stage, literary works were given political meanings under the pen of left-wing writers, and solidarity with the international proletarian revolutionary movement was also one of the main activities of the left-wing writers in Germany at that time. As Seghers puts it, she “recognized the interconnectedness of the contradictions in her own country and the struggles being waged in faraway China”. The literary ideology behind this watchfulness is extremely interesting to study.

Seghers has portrayed diverse and vivid images of Chinese revolutionaries in her works, embodying the heroic and fearless revolutionary image of the Chinese people in their anti-imperialist and anti-feudal struggles, and expressing the writer's affectionate homage to the Chinese revolution. Her works not only formed a close connection with the social reality of China at that time, but also formed a profound dialog with the revolutionary writing in global left-wing literature. We can see China a hundred years ago and the proletarian revolutionary movement in China from Seghers' writing, looking at ourselves with the gaze of the Other and adding a different perspective to this great history.

Huiwen (回文) is a unique and important literary genre in the history of Chinese literary development. Starting from the translation variation of the word huiwen in English, Guo reviews the pictorial form, richness of types, and diversity of content and meaning of huiwen poetry, and combines the compilation history of huiwen collections to briefly describe its long history and far-reaching influence. Focusing on the iconic work in the Chinese huiwen sequence: Su Hui(苏蕙)’s “Xuan Ji Map”(璇玑图), Guo combs and analyzes the general neglect of it in Chinese literary history since the 1980s, as well as the shortcomings in the few introductions. Then, Guo summarizes and explores the introduction of “Xuan Ji Map” as world literature in the history of Chinese literature and world literature in the Anglo-American Academia, analyzing the presentation dimensions, and focusing on David Hinton’s works to re-examine the Confucian and Taoist connotations and feminist implications in “Xuan Ji Map”. On this basis, Guo reviews the history of Chinese literature compiled by Chinese scholars in the early twentieth century, revealing that there was more attention and recognition given to “Xuan Ji Map”, and thus rethink the relationship between huiwen poetry and tradition and modernity, calling for future literary history writing to pay more attention to Su Hui’s “Xuan Ji Map” and other huiwen poetry.

Abstract：Facing the global ecological and environmental crisis, literature has made the most direct and critical response creatively. Looking at the literary histories of China and the United States, both William Faulkner and Jia Pingwa have been dedicated to writing about nature and humanistic ecology, exploring the social roots of ecological crises, and seeking solutions to ecological problems for over half a century. Their writings reflect the insights and reflections of the East and the West on ecological civilization, providing typical research texts for systematically studying ecological views in different cultures. Under the guidance of ecological criticism theories from both China and the West, this paper analyzes the characteristics of the two writers’ works in terms of ecological literature themes, ecological images, and ecological thoughts, outlining the similarities and differences in their ecological literary expressions. Furthermore, under the model of mutual interpretation of ecological thoughts between China and the West, and in the context of social history, it differentiates and interprets the “similarities within differences” and “differences within similarities” in their ecological writings, building a bridge for the exchange and communication of ecological thoughts between China and the West, and exploring new paths for mutual recognition and learning of ecological thoughts between the two cultures.

The concept of "game" has existed since ancient times. Although it has long been in a "non-mainstream" position, it has always existed in the process of civilization development, playing a role in shaping, constructing and influencing human civilization. At present, mankind has entered the digital age, and the content of digital games can allow players to understand civilization and even influence players' views on civilization. However, at present, Chinese digital games lack works with strong meaning and value connotations, and accordingly, there is a lack of an independent knowledge system for game research theory. Faced with the urgent need to establish an independent knowledge system for Chinese digital game research, how should Chinese digital games and research actively participate in the writing of civilization history? For the above issues, this article puts forward some views.

The origin of world literature in China can be traced back to 1898, but Chinese intellectuals consciously advocated for it in the 1920s. Members of literary research association文學研究會, led by Shen Yanbing沈雁冰, Zheng Zhenduo鄭振鐸, Ye Shaojun葉紹鈞 and others, aimed at introducing world literature, organizing old Chinese literature and creating new literature, and vigorously translated and introduced foreign literary works through The Short Story Magazine小說月報, Literary Monthly文學旬刊 and other publications. Among them, Shen Yanbing’s practice of “world literature” may deserve special attention. On the one hand, his call to not only develop national literature but also jointly promote world literature echoes Goethe’s vision. On the other hand, he actively cooperated with foreign journalists in China in an effort to promote Chinese literature to the world.

This paper mainly focuses on Shen Yanbing’s early practice of world literature. The first part examines his literary reform movement within The Short Story Monthly, transforming it successfully from the base camp of the Mandarin Duck and Butterfly School into the vanguard for spreading new world trends. The second part explores the changes of Shen Yanbing’s own concept of translation. Behind this change/wavering is actually his deep understanding of world literature and his firm determination to integrate Chinese literature into the global literary landscape. The third part will discuss a series of Shen Yanbing’s practices aimed at promoting Chinese literature on the world stage. Together, these contents constitute Shen Yanbing’s early conception of world literature and his exploratory practices.

Abstract: This study is based on Feng Shi's theory of the religious nature of primitive writing and the East-West discourse of Yi and Xia. It employs a method of comprehensive comparison and empirical analysis to delve into the hidden connections between Sanxingdui symbols, Bashu pictography, and early Ancient Yi script. The rich primitive divination customs of the Yi people and their Bagua system provide a rich cultural soil for this research. Through a detailed analysis of Yi bone divination rituals, the study reveals the entire process from the clear purpose of divination to the interpretation of the burn patterns, forming a unique narrative system of pictography. In this process, the initial relationship between divination texts and cracks is not established on clear meanings, resulting in a randomness and mysticism in the judgment of good and bad fortune in relation to the shape of the cracks. The research finds significant common characteristics between the symbols used in Yi bone divination and early Ancient Yi script, Sanxingdui symbols, and Bashu pictography. It is inferred that early Ancient Yi script may have been created by priests to achieve communication between humans and deities based on the burn patterns of bone divination. Among these, Bashu pictography is likely the divination symbols for communication between gods and humans, such as "卐" and "十"; while Sanxingdui symbols serve to interpret the meanings of divination texts and assess auspiciousness, such as the commonly seen "eye" symbol representing divine communication on Sanxingdui bronze vessels. Thus, it can be seen that Bashu pictography and Sanxingdui symbols collectively constitute an important source of early Ancient Yi script. This research emphasizes that Sanxingdui symbols, Bashu pictography, and early Ancient Yi script are key carriers of early Chinese civilization, providing important clues for the origin and development of Chinese civilization, just like oracle bone script.

Over a hundred years ago, through learning and imitating from the discourse and systems generated in Western philosophy, Chinese scholars gradually built the so-called “Chinese philosophy” with pre-Qin thought as its source. Up to the present time, the controversy around it brought about by one-way borrowing has gradually transformed into the exploration on independence of Chinese philosophy, in which overseas pre-Qin thought research has played an important role. This article focuses on the pre-Qin research of Chad Hansen, along with that of Chris Fraser and Roger T. Ames, so as to discuss how Chris and Roger, under the influence of Hansen, show the sense of mutual learning of civilizations through their distinctive approaches. The three Sinologists above, who present different concerns respectively in their study on Confucianism and Mohism, then meet in a broader area, namely pre-Qin philosophical thought research, emphasizing the elimination of binary opposition and promotion of mutual dialogue between China and the West, and hence launch a rewriting of Chinese and Western philosophy and even civilizations.Specifically, Roger, who thinks through Confucius and is committed to letting Chinese philosophy speak, examines and develops Confucian philosophy by drawing on the ancient Chinese language philosophy constructed by Hansen based on the thoughts including Mohism and School of Names; Chris, who directly follows Hansen, reflects on the value of Chinese thought in today’s world philosophy and make further interpretation and translation of pre-Qin texts such as Mozi. More importantly, their researches on pre-Qin thought reveal the attempt and trend of “learning from the east to solve Western problems”, and this is also the great proof of the actual interaction and dialogue in Sinology, which is indeed our wish of advocating mutual learning of civilizations.

Pearl S. Buck Pearl S. Buck, best known for her writings on the Chinese, is often described as a “BRIDGE” across the Pacific. The analogy, however, means just the opposite for Buck, as it indicates the incommensurability of the two nations as the result of the huge gap, and the effort to “connect” the two sides of the ocean may prove futile since the two nations hold different cultural heritages and ideological imprints. Despite the geographical as well as ideological implications of separation, a bridge does carry within itself the traces of connectability, though. As an American missionary, Buck has a strong awareness of her particular obligation to America, yet her strong compassion for and moral inclination towards the Chinese do not entail the sense of displacement as it normally does for those living in two cultures, as the result of her “life experience” which she would regard as her ethical choice. The role she plays, that of a cultural envoy, medium or bridge, coincides with the Levinasian concept of “face” or the Confucian ideal of “accommodation with difference.” However, this “life experience” has indeed produced the ethical dilemma for Buck: any ethical choice is made in specific cultural context, and the abstract notions of cosmopolitanism and face with dual commitment do make her a third culture child, with a particularism yet recognized by neither culture.

After entering the 21st century, scholars have increasingly focused on the topic of “Rewriting the History of World Civilizations/Literature”. This is largely due to the social, economic, and technological developments, which have led to a more interactive and complex cultural system. Scholars are urgently reinterpreting outdated concepts with new knowledge. Just as the existing history of world civilizations is almost entirely framed within the West-dominated discourse, the history of classic world literature is similarly dominated by the elites, the white males and the so-called serious literature. When it comes to 19th-century American classical literature, the well-known male authors such as Hawthorne, Melville, and Whitman quickly come to mind, while female authors remain largely unknown, with their works rarely translated into Chinese. During that time, however, woman’s writing was on par with man’s writing both quantitatively and qualitatively, even dominating best-seller lists—so much so that even Hawthorne and his The Scarlet Letter could not compare. The subsequent re-rise and dramatic decline of women’s writing in literary history is a topic of great study value.This leads to the necessity of discussing the reasons for women beginning to write in the 19th century. Woolf states in “A Room of One’s Own”, that if a woman is about to write, she must have money and a room of her own. — This was particularly valid in the American literary scene of that time. “Money” and “a room” means that women had the opportunity for education, could afford servants or nannies to alleviate household burdens, and had the ability and energy to write. All this was nearly impossible for daughters of the working-class. The emergence of middle-class female writers was due to a complex array of economic, cultural, and social factors, marking an important part of the transformative 19th century. Concurrent with the rise of female writers was the increase in female reading and feminist criticism. Together, these three activities constructed the unique feminine literary landscape of that era.Overall, scholars have made diverse efforts to restore the place of 19th-century American women’s writing within literary history: from feminist perspectives to restore the literature’s rightful place, to examine the interactions between 19th-century American social cultural contexts and women’s popular literature, to discuss themes in 19th-century American women’s literature, and to explore literary techniques and strategies, and the dissemination and reception of 19th-century American women’s literature, as well as the interactions between authors, works, and readers.Just as the prevailing view of civilization is centered around the hegemony of Western perspectives, the existing literary history too reflects a narrative dominated by traditional male classics, particularly elite, white, heterosexual male authors, rather than an objective and comprehensive literary history.

For a long time, the concept of Western centrism has dominated the writing of world history, and East Asian cultures have often been marginalized. However, in recent years, this "center-periphery" historical narrative model has gradually been rethought and challenged. Scholars are beginning to seek a more equal and pluralistic historical perspective, placing the interaction between Eastern and Western cultures on a more equal footing for examination. The writing of world civilization history is no longer “the story of the West,” but rather a chapter of the joint development of global civilizations.

World literature should not simply be a continuation of Western literature; classical works and modern literary creations from all around the world should occupy a place in this grand narrative. Increasingly, works by non-Western authors have gained global recognition and dissemination, constructing a more open and inclusive literary landscape. World literature should not only include Western classics such as Shakespeare and Dante but should also cover non-Western classics, such as China’s The Story of the Stone, India’s Bhagavad Gita, and the Arab world’s One Thousand and One Nights.

Looking back at the development of Chinese literature, it has been intricately linked to classical studies since its inception. Classical studies, as the mainstream ideology of ancient China, provided a profound intellectual foundation for literary creation. The Confucian thought within classical studies influenced the values and moral views of literary works. Classical studies also directly impacted the content and form of literary creation. In the Qing Dynasty, scholar Zhang Xuecheng proposed an important academic proposition: “The Six Classics are all literature,” aiming to return the sacred classical studies to simple social life, emphasizing the literary and aesthetic significance of classical studies. He believed that the Six Classics were not only Confucian scriptures but also models of literature and art, possessing profound poetic character and artistic spirituality. Indeed, in the writing of world literary history, the Confucian classics of China should not be forgotten.

In the context of globalization, rewriting world civilization history is no longer a one-dimensional process but a collision and integration of multiple cultures. As one of the important representatives of Eastern culture, Chinese Confucian classics provide important philosophical ideas and cultural resources, having a profound influence on this process. From the perspective of civilization concepts and modern impact, Confucian classics offer unique Eastern wisdom for the development of world civilization.

Wang Meng's literary sign view was formed in the late 1980s to the early 1990s. During this period, there were not only the "Year of methods", which imported Western modern theories, but also the "national studies fever", which returned to Chinese classical literature. Under the collision between Li Shangyin's poetry aesthetics, the narrative aesthetics of "A Dream of Red Mansions" and Western semiotic theory, Wang Meng finally put forward the literary sign view, which achieved the artistic conception of "Wu Duan"(无端）by "reorganization" semiotic thinking. It enriches and deepens the western semiotic theory with the characteristics of Chinese characters and Chinese classical aesthetics, which is the crystallization of the mutual learning of world civilizations in Chinese contemporary literature, and the expansion of Western literary discourse by the invention of literary discourse unique to Chinese contemporary literature. Wang Meng's literary sign view almost overlapped with the period when Wang Meng served as the chief editor of People's Literature and the Minister of Culture of China, having influence on the development of literature in the 1980s into the 1990s. This crystallization of mutual learning between Chinese and Western civilizations has greatly influenced the trend of contemporary Chinese literature. Wang Meng recognized the "reorganization" characteristic of language signs, and clearly proposed the "semiotic" nature and function of this "reorganization" operation. In The Temptation of Reorganization, Wang Meng combs out the "reorganization" of the index school of A Dream of Red Mansions and his own "reorganization" experiment of Li Shangyin's poetry. It can be seen that Wang Meng's so-called "reorganization" characteristic of language signs focuses on the exploration of multiple meanings under different combinations of the same set of language signs, which is the literary theory crystallization of the collision of Chinese and Western literary thoughts in contemporary China.Although Wang Meng's literary sign view draws on Western semiotics, its thinking anchor is always the characteristics of Chinese language and Chinese aesthetics.As far as semiotics is concerned, Wang Meng's literary sign view has both entry and transcendence.It produces some cognition beyond Western semiotic theory in the perception and practice of Chinese literature creation.Wang Meng puts forward the "Wu Duan" state of "extra-language", which provides Chinese thinking and Chinese strategy for facing the advantages of sign derivation in semiotic theory to approach true knowledge and the limitation of the sliding of reason in the process of sign use, which is the contribution of Chinese literary discourse to world civilization.

By comparing the narratives of father-son relationship between Houji, the ancestor of Zhou people, and Oedipus myth in ancient Greece, this paper reveals how “respecting father” and “patricide”, as two kinds of intergenerational ethical paradigms, can build up a differentiated solution to the anxiety of power transmission between Chinese and Western civilizations, which can provide new perspectives and practical paths for the mutual understanding of civilizations and the construction of human ethics. This research can provide new perspectives and practical paths for the mutual understanding of civilizations and the construction of human ethics. Firstly, using the method of mythological structure analysis, it is pointed out that the narrative chain of Oedipus' “oracle-patricide-self-punishment” implies the critical projection of the hereditary kingship in the ancient Greek city-states, while the myth of Houji, through the double reverence of “heavenly father and human father”, highlights the political theology of “heavenly order and ancestral virtues” in the Zhou Dynasty. Although the two myths show the superficial opposition between “examining father” and “simulating father”, they are in fact a common response to the legitimacy crisis of bloodline and power. Secondly, from the perspective of cultural psychology, this paper put aside Freud's “patricide complex” interpretation, restore the public anxiety of the Oedipus myth, and analyze how “honoring the father” in the Houji narrative constructs the “blood-land-political ethical community” through sacrificial rituals and patriarchal genealogy. The study also analyzes how “honoring the father” in the Haji narrative constructs an ethical community of “blood-land-politics” through rituals and patriarchal genealogy. It reveals that “patricide” in Ancient Greece is a metaphor for the individual's tragic breakout from patriarchal power, while “honoring the father” in China is an earthly form of the heavenly order. Finally, the study examines the reconstruction of the “patricide” narrative in Western modernity and the transformation dilemma of the “father-honoring” tradition in modern China, and puts forward the viewpoint of “ethical complementarity” between the East and the West. The idea of “ethical complementarity” between China and the West is put forward, which advocates reflecting on and reconstructing the traditional patriarchal structure, transcending the dichotomy between “fatherhood” and “patricide”, and exploring a more inclusive and dynamic model of fatherhood, in order to reconcile the global dilemma of individual freedom and community ethics.

As a medium, the transformation of characters has had a profound impact on society. In the historical process of the development of Chinese civilisation, the Chinese character, in its own iteration, has also reflected all aspects of the social development of the time, including the political system, the level of science and technology, and the living conditions, etc. As an important cultural symbol, it carries phonetic semantics in its initial function, and at the same time unites different individuals by itself. As an important cultural symbol, while fulfilling its initial function of carrying phonetics and semantics, it united various individuals and, through its own simplification, further downgraded itself to become a more universal tool for use. As China's own national power progressed, the Chinese character was gradually spread to minority regions and foreign countries, and also exchanged with local cultures and fused with them, forming a hidden but solid cultural circle of Chinese characters that still plays its role today. However, Chinese characters have not been specifically discussed in the history of Chinese civilisation, but rather as a simple part of it. In the future, therefore, there is a need to strengthen the establishment of a dedicated history of civilisation in Chinese characters, not only in terms of the history of the development of the characters themselves and the way they were created, but also in terms of the exchanges and fusion of Chinese characters in various civilisations. This kind of civilisation history writing for the cultural circle of Chinese characters is also conducive to the dissemination of Chinese culture while improving academic research. Cultural construction is an important means of strengthening cultural confidence. Relevant theoretical research helps to provide solid theoretical support for people's correct understanding, cognition and identification with history, so as to effectively achieve cultural self-confidence. It is only when civilisations learn from each other on the basis of cultural self-confidence that they can maximise their strengths and leave the glory of the long-lasting Chinese character civilisation in the history of the world's civilisations.

The Chinese experimental opera adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays have become a unique phenomenon of cross-cultural exchange, which not only demonstrates the deep fusion of Chinese and Western theatre cultures, but also promotes the combination of the traditional art of xiqu with modern aesthetic concepts. By analyzing the experimental Peking opera “King Lear”, the experimental opera “Who is Macbeth?” and the experimental kunqu “I, Hamlet”, this article discusses the unique value and significance of these works in cross-cultural exchange. These works bring audiences a refreshing theater-going experience through unique Chinese-style performances, post-modern presentations of traditional opera elements, and deep linkage between Chinese and Western culture and thinking—firstly, the performance structure, stage design and vocal style employ rich Chinese representations in their adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays; secondly, the metatheatrical devices, such as solo performer and play-within-play structure, express their postmodern reinterpretations of traditional xiqu; thirdly, the Eastern and Western character linkage and similar identity exploration show the cultural connection and common value in different backgrounds. Through the unique Chinese-style performance, the post-modern presentation, and the deep linkage between Chinese and Western theaters, Chinese experimental opera brings the audience a brand new experience and provides a useful path for the innovative practice of xiqu.

The introduction of the discourse of “civilization” in late Qing Dynasty promoted a transformation of literary concepts and practices. As a key figure in the dissemination of “civilization theory” in modern China, Liang Qichao’s changing views on civilization influenced the evolution of his literary values. From the Hundred Days Reform(1898) to the years his exiled in Japan, Liang was deeply influenced by the civilizational theories of Fukuzawa Yukichi, the father of Japanese Enlightenment thought, who advocated for the development of “Western civilization”. Liang applied this framework to guide literary reform, assigning the novel with the mission to create “new citizens”, emphasizing its educational and enlightening functions while downplaying its entertainment or leisure purposes. This shift led to the elevation of the “novel” and “drama” as literary genres. After returning to China in 1912, Liang persistently reflected on and revised his earlier views on civilization, achieving a transformation from a singular to a plural view of civilization, from a hierarchical theory of civilizations to a harmonious one, from an uncritical adherence to evolutionary theory to a more reflective stance on it, and from a focus on scientificism to an emphasis on “individualism” rooted in human nature.In terms of literary cultural values, Liang’s views evolved from an admiration of Western modern civilization to a return to Chinese classical culture.Regarding the social value orientation of literature, his literary focus shifted from “intellectual enlightenment” to “emotional enlightenment”, and from “the mass governance” to “the individual life”. As a result, the genre of “poetry”, which emphasized “emotional education”, was elevated to the highest position in literature. Liang’s later insights into the modern elements within Chinese classical poetry, his emphasis on the ethnic, historical, and literary significance of poetic language, and his predictions regarding the development of vernacular poetry all provided valuable perspectives for the development of modern Chinese poetry, which warrant further study.

The finiteness of language, that is, the problem of “linguistic negation” has always been the focus of research in both Chinese and Western academic circles, which actually involves the understanding and grasping of the way of discourse between Chinese and Western literature and even civilization, but at present, there is still much room for exploring the comparative research on the theoretical contents of the two. In the 1940s and 1950s, Maurice Blanchot systematically discussed his views on literary language in a number of books and articles, and constructed a unique view of literary language. Later, Blanchot's theory of language provided an ideological reference for Roland Barthes' proposal of zero-degree writing, and Barthes had an important influence on the creation and criticism of Western post-structuralist and post-modernist literature in the 20th century. And all of this is, ultimately, a reflection and breakthrough of the 20th century Western view of language and discourse under logocentrism and phonocentrism. However, all these attempts have yet to break away from the barrier of “language” to solve the problem of the finiteness of language. As a pioneer of deconstructionism, Jacques Derrida once favored Chinese characters in his deconstruction of logocentrism, and emphasized in Writing and Difference the possibilities of Chinese culture in transcending logocentrism and phonocentrism. In fact, just like Derrida’s viewpoint, China has already proposed a way to solve the problem of the finiteness of language by breaking out of the linguistic framework as early as Confucius, that is, in the Book of Changes-Xi Ci I, Confucius put forward the idea of “Setting up an Image to Express Meanings” to show his aim of making up for the inadequacy of the language in terms of representation by means of images or imagery, which is obviously a solution to the problem of the finiteness of language in a way that is different from that of the Western tradition. This is obviously a different solution to the problem of the finiteness of language from the Western tradition. This study summarizes the above-mentioned ways of solving the problem of “linguistic negation” in the Chinese and Western traditions into two paths: “endogenous” and “exogenous”, and presents the differences and similarities between the two paths through a comparative analysis of them, pointing out the value of the Chinese literary theory’s discourse of “Setting up an Image to Express Meanings” to the Western philosophical tradition of language, so as to provide the necessary theoretical support for the mutual understanding and learning of Chinese and Western discourse and civilizations.

The perception of the independence of ancient Greek civilization and the belief that Western civilization originates solely from ancient Greece are among the historical foundations of Western superiority and Eurocentrism. However, ancient Greek civilization was not immune to the influences of ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations. The spread of civilizations across regions occurs through the mobility of their members, and mutual exchange and learning between civilizations is a fundamental law of their development. Ancient Greece was never geographically isolated from the East. The Eastern civilizations around the Mediterranean continuously contributed to the rise of ancient Greece through trade, migration, and other exchanges, laying the foundation for the flourishing of ancient Greek civilization. The formation of this brilliant civilization was never a product of isolation. Efforts to obscure the influence of Eastern civilizations on ancient Greece, to disparage Eastern civilizations, and to disregard historical facts must be addressed and clarified. The wheel of history, driven by exchange and mutual learning, turns alongside the progression of time. Historical truths must not be distorted by constructs such as "civilizational superiority" or "civilizational centrality," and ancient Greek civilization is no exception.

From the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century, the history of civilization as a kind of "new history" was established in Europe, absorbed by Japan, and then introduced to China by Liang Qichao and other scholars of the Qing Dynasty, attracting widespread attention in the academic circles. 21st century, a large number of works on the history of Western civilization have been translated and published in Chinese, and the Western trend of thought continues to influence the public's cognition of the development of civilization, and Western scholars have always dominated the discourse on the history of civilization.At the same time, the attention of the academic circles to the writing of the history of civilization has been increasing, and the works on the history of civilization written by Chinese scholars have been published one after another, and the theoretical researches have been deepened continuously. from the 19th century to the present day, the writing of the history of Chinese civilization has gone through three major stages of aphasia of writing, taking the path of the West, and breaking out of the West, and has continuously constructed a discourse system of the view of civilization with Chinese characteristics. However, it cannot be ignored that the writing of the history of Chinese civilization started late and had a short history of development, and there are still many problems, such as: omission of historical facts and insufficient understanding of the origin of Chinese civilization; applying Western theories and following the logic of Western civilization history writing in terms of writing ideas, definition of "civilization", phasing of the era, and other core concepts; lack of the concept of writing the history of civilization for mutual benefit; and neglecting the concept of writing the history of different civilizations. In the absence of the concept of mutual learning of civilizations, the intermingling and mutual appreciation among different civilizations are neglected; the writing field is limited, and no attention has been paid to the writing of the history of Chinese scientific civilization, the history of Chinese minority civilizations, and other topics.

In the history of eastern and western Literature, there is a Secretive Counterpoint Writing chain deserves our attention. Mili: A Chinese fairy tale figured a story between a powerful Chinese prince and an England girl in trouble. Walpole originates a kind of narrative tradition, which regards the gender, race and identity as the important elements in building the relationship between eastern culture and western culture. The tradition is also widely employed in the literary works such as Madam Butterfly, Miss Saigon and L'amant in the 19th century. However, the three novels reverse Walpole’s cultural orientation, represent its race discrimination. Nevertheless, M. Butterfly, The Lost Daughter of Happiness and K express their dissatisfaction with race discrimination in the western people’s minds .These seven works ranging from Mili:A Chinese fairy tale to K fully improve this narrative tradition, in which main elements such as the gender, race and identity are frequently used and developed in different eras, forming the Counterpoint Writing relationship between them.

This paper reexamines the translation of Lord Byron as a rebel hero and poetic model of British Romanticism in ‘May Fourth’ China, foregrounding its intricate engagement with the evolving trajectory of Chinese literary modernity. In doing so, it proposes a framework grounded in Even-Zohar’s Polysystem theory, Lefevere’s notion of rewriting, and theoretical conceptualisations of literary modernity. With a particular focus on the 1924 special issues of Short Story Monthly and Morning News Supplement, this study explores the poetic and sociocultural constraints that shaped the translation of Byron’s poetry in the era characterised by the rise of vernacular language, the prosperity of modern free verse, and the integration of Western mode of expression into Chinese literary repertoire. The descriptive and historical analysis not only unveils the critical role of translation in both reflecting and contributing to the transformation of Chinese poetry from a ‘stagnant’ old genre to a ‘living’ new one but, more significantly, suggests that the newness of the modern cannot be framed as a clear-cut rupture with the past but rather involves a set of fierce and intricate confrontations and collaborations between the traditional and the modern, as well as the indigenous and the foreign.

Under the perspective of mutual learning of civilizations, the image of the Miao people in the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China is a diverse and complex topic. The image of the Miao people in this period was not only influenced by their own cultural traditions, but also deeply imprinted with the collision and integration with foreign cultures, especially the western Christian culture and the mainstream culture of the Central Plains. With The West China Missionary News (1899-1943) as the center and through the image of Miao people in this period, we can have a deeper understanding of the uniqueness and diversity of Miao culture, and a better understanding of the communication and interaction between different cultures.

Firstly, the portrayal of the Miao in the The West China Missionary News is examined, focusing on three aspects: the natural environment, social culture, and psychological essence. This analysis reveals a Western depiction of the Miao as "primitive" "backward" "poor" and "ignorant" reflecting a derogatory and negative perspective. This stereotype stems from Western labeling, portraying the Miao as a group in need of Western "salvation" and "enlightenment". Further, the construction of the Miao image in the publication is scrutinized through historical, textual and authorial contexts, elucidating how the Miao have been represented as "the other". The examination explores the dynamics behind the formation of their image. Lastly, the value of the "foreign gaze" is assessed, revealing the Miao's image and its implications. This reevaluation serves as a mirror to reflect on unnoticed cultural issues and exposes the significance of the representation of Southwest China's ethnic minorities under modern Western discourse.

Through foreign eyes, we can observe that news reports featuring images depicting Miao people not only serve as personal creative records reflecting what Western writers have witnessed, but also offer colorful depictions reflecting cultural histories among southwest Miao people during late Qing Dynasty up until the Republic of China. Unique news styles coupled with narrative elements present throughout The West China Missionary News contain intertextual values bridging textuality with reality when examining literary imagery.

This historical experience offers important insights for mutual learning between Chinese and Western civilizations. Firstly, cultural exchanges must be based on the principles of equality and respect, avoiding cultural hegemony and assimilation. Secondly, cultural transformation should focus on the protection and development of indigenous cultures, rather than simply transplanting foreign cultures. Finally, cross-cultural exchanges require sincere cooperation and mutual understanding from both parties to achieve true mutual learning and win-win outcomes.

The algorithmic transformation of digital ink art provides a cross-disciplinary artistic paradigm for addressing cultural aphasia. Grounded in Variation Theory as its methodological foundation, this paper demonstrates how Chinese literary theory reconstructs indigenous aesthetic discourse to counteract the subjective colonization of Eastern art by Western techno-centrism.

The study reveals the dual cultural effects of algorithmic disenchantment: While Western technology reduces "bone method brushwork" to computational symbols, Chinese literary theory activates dormant aesthetic genes through cultural filtration mechanisms. The digitization of ink ontology does not entail passive dissolution, but rather achieves algorithmic empowerment of traditional aesthetics through transmedial reinterpretation of "qiyun" (spirit-resonance) and revitalization of "fenggu" (wind-bone). This investigation decodes China's approach through two experimental paradigms:1. Poetic resistance to technological hegemony through "qiyun": Xu Bing's The Character of Chinese Characters reconstructs "feibai" (flying white) brushwork as fragmented data-stream narratives through cross-civilizational dialogue between oracle bone script and ASCII codes. Guided by Liu Xie's "spiritual thought" from The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons, the work transforms creative consciousness of "conceptual primacy over brushwork" into intersubjectivity within interactive interfaces. By embedding Eastern temporal philosophy within Deleuze's "Logic of Sensation", it subverts David Damrosch’s presumption of cultural dissipation in "elliptical refraction".2. Paradigm-shifting challenge to modernity narratives through "fenggu": The AI landscape program reconstructs spatial cognition in convolutional neural networks using Guo Xi's "Three Distances" theory, with initial parameters set through Shitao's "One-Stroke" doctrine. The "raindrop texture strokes" generated through adversarial training create non-Western visual syntax. This "algorithmic cunfa" not only disproves James Cahill's modernist anxiety about the "end of Chinese painting", but also establishes bidirectional negotiation between technological rules and Eastern aesthetics through Xie He's "Six Principles" evaluation system.

This paper proposes that digital ink art fundamentally constitutes a technological pathway for Chinese literary theory to resolve cultural aphasia. Through "intermediality" and "cultural transposition", Chinese aesthetics achieves three breakthroughs: transforming technological disenchantment from passive adaptation to active reconstruction; shifting artistic subjectivity from "othering" expressions to localized transcoding; and materializing civilizational dialogue beyond theoretical abstraction into technological embodiment. This provides Eastern wisdom transcending postcolonial narratives for the global literary community.

The Beats of the 1940s and 1950s inevitably invites exploration of the diverse intercultural influences that shaped it and its lasting legacy. In the last decades, Chinese scholars have made great contribution to the international research into Zen for the Beats, through the concentration on Han Shan, or Cold Mountain in Tang Dynasty, in the Beats’ translation and literature works. Central to this maverick community is Jack Kerouac, the leader who combined the figure of Han Shan with his personal background in his works.

With the booming of the Theory of Variation in Chinese comparative literature, scholars have noted the quality of Variation in the image of Han Shan yet few have provided convincing or detailed arguments regarding the rich connotations of Kerouac’s portrayal of Han Shan. Even among the limited studies, the focus tends to be on the similarities between American local culture and Zen, claiming it was Zen’s compromise that prompted the intercultural communication while meanwhile denies the distinctive value of Kerouac’s literary vision in shaping this image.

However, as the Theory of Variation in comparative literature mainly studies the variation in the communication of literature between different countries and different civilizations, with an emphasis on identifying difference, Kerouac are vital contributors to world literature for his noteworthy and innovative variation of Han Shan. Therefore, taking Kerouac’s varied depictions of Han Shan in two of his semi-autobiographical works — The Dharma Bums and Desolation Angels as a compelling case study within the framework of the Theory of Variation, I would demonstrate how Kerouac employed cultural filtering through selecting and omitting Chinese Han Shan while infusing this image with American cultural and philosophical dimensions i.e., Christianity and Transcendentalism. Intriguingly, his creative writing of Han Shan may predict and provide a way to comprehend Deleuze’s aesthetic concept of Rhizome.

Through an American lens, Kerouac has transformed Han Shan into an ever-lasting heterogeneous symbol within world literature. Thus, investigating Han Shan’s dynamic evolution as a world literary symbol within Kerouac’s works under the perspective of Variation, not only bears relevance in understanding the Beats, but also experiments a new avenue of inquiry of contemporary literature, shifting from pursuing homogeneity in comparative literature to the mutual learning of disparate civilizations in world literature.

In the early 1960s, young Bob Dylan entered the scene and core of the New York counterculture movement, perceiving the popularity of the distinctive ideas from the Chinese classic "I Ching" among the youth represented by the hippies, which were quite different from Western traditions. Through reading, communication, and in-depth contemplation, Bob Dylan artistically transformed the philosophies in the "I Ching", such as the simplicity of the great way, change and constancy, and the interdependence of opposites. He successively created songs like "Blowin' in the Wind", "The Times They Are a-Changin'", and "Like a Rolling Stone", which reflected the contemporary value of ancient Chinese I Ching thought in terms of form, content, and philosophical connotations. The "I Ching" also had significant enlightening significance for Dylan's artistic creation that had a global impact. Dylan's reception of the "I Ching" is an important case of Chinese culture being introduced into the United States and having a profound influence, which deserves the attention of the academic community.

Walter Benjamin, in his essay Das Kunstwerk in Zeitalter der Reproduzierbarkeit, explored the link between technical reproducibility and the demise of authenticity and tradition. The concept of an original, central to traditional translation theories based on fidelity, also erodes. Benjamin wrote:

"The presence of the original is the prerequisite to the concept of authenticity. [...] The whole sphere of authenticity is outside technical—and, of course, not only technical—reproducibility. Confronted with its manual reproduction, which was usually branded as a forgery, the original preserved all its authority; not so vis à vis technical reproduction."

"One might generalize by saying: the technique of reproduction detaches the reproduced object from the domain of tradition. By making many reproductions, it substitutes a plurality of copies for a unique existence. And in permitting the reproduction to meet the beholder or listener in his own particular situation, it reactivates the object reproduced. These two processes lead to a tremendous shattering of tradition."

Cinema, as the apex of reproductive technology for Benjamin, entails “the liquidation of the traditional value of the cultural heritage.” How, then, can we rethink translation in a post-tradition world, where the distinction between original and copy has lost meaning?

Vilém Flusser suggests we have shifted from the era of technical reproduction to synthetic images and life. If so, we are also in a post-reproduction and post-translation culture. Translation once relied on historical culture and an individual detached from the public sphere. Now, in the era of synthetic images, new self-images of humanity emerge, surpassing not just historical perspectives but also modern translation. Thus, translation has, over the 20th century, become a literary genre.

To post-tradition, we must add post-translation. This is clear when a screen touch produces instant text versions in nearly any language, or when films on streaming platforms launch in dozens of languages at once. Often, we cannot identify the “original language” of these works.

Yet, as languages circulate synthetically, merging in a boundless process of multi-circulation that fosters cultural porosity, the opposite occurs with human bodies. Borders increasingly exclude, turning into quasi-concentration camps. Dead bodies drift in the Mediterranean, stereotyped as unacceptable and undesirable.

This paper links these two phenomena: the absolute hospitality of post-translational synthetic versions, enabled by new technologies, and the hostile bordering of the world, fostering racism and deadly zones of untranslatability.

This paper aims to examine the links between memoir-writing, imagination and translation, particularly when the latter is understood as an experience of exile. Building on past work on the intersection between the concepts and narrative experiences of ‘translation’ and ‘exile’, (Lopes 2016, 2020, 2021), the reflection now proposed will continue the enquiry focusing, this time, on Out of Place. A Memoir (2000), by Edward Said. The memoir will be read against the author’s considerations about exile.

The paper will discuss the ways in which memoir and exile (re)create a diverse geography of experience, enhanced by the deterritorialisation and reterritorialisation of existence that are impulses – sometimes metaphorical (values, habits, rituals, ways of life), sometimes literal (languages) – for a form of translation that brings together memory and imagination.

Said’s work, significantly entitled Out of Place, summons up the concepts (and experience) of ‘displacement’, ‘deterritorialisation’ and ‘banishment’, to translate the idea (and experience) of loss: ‘Out of Place is a record of an essentially lost or forgotten world’, as the author states in its preface (2000: xiii). To this extent, Said's memoir, written during a period marked by other vulnerabilities, evokes a world that only exists in memory (and/or imagination) and in its verbalisation – processes that I read as acts of translation, which (re)imagine, in different circumstances and languages, an otherwise unrecoverable past.

Particularly relevant to this (attempt at) recovery is the search for a home that has been lost as a sign of identity and stability, because ‘[e]xile is [...] the unhealable rift forced between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home: its essential sadness can never be surmounted’ (Said 2002: 174). Salman Rushdie calls this sadness a double feeling of unbelonging – homelessness results from a literal translation in space, exposing the displaced person to a daily life inhabited by (potential) untranslatability and, paradoxically, the need for constant processes of linguistic, cultural and experiential translation, as well as constant reimagination of the self.

Spatial displacement causes an emotional slippage condemning exiles to an ‘elsewhereness’ of experience - a kind of deictic wandering, for they never fully belong ‘here’ nor ‘there’, a state of perpetual translation between ‘here’ and ‘there’ –, making them at once vulnerable and a sign of late modernity. By attempting to recover a lost world, Said is arguably reinventing it, ‘creat[ing] fictions, not actual cities or villages, but invisible ones, imaginary homelands’ (Rushdie 1991: 10) – as such, re-membering is arguably always in itself an act of translated, imaginative, and provisional reassemblage.

The scholarly tradition that links notions of translation and hospitality has frequently focused on the linguistic and philosophical connections between hospes and hostis, the host and the enemy. The negative connotations of this approach and its imagery become all the more powerful – indeed, dramatic – as technology comes to play an increasingly powerful role both in managing practices of translation and in mediating processes of hospitality. A possible alternative route seeks to avoid or at least mitigate such binary, confrontational models by pointing instead towards (imperfect, unfinished) forms of translation as copresence and collaboration. Following suggestions that emerge from philosophical approaches to linguistic hospitality (especially Ricouer, Sur la traduction, 2004) as well as experiential accounts of translation practices (such as Mireille Gansel’s Traduire comme transhumer, 2012), this paper will reflect on the ‘hopeful’ reading of translation as a form of (ongoing, incomplete) hospitality based on the acknowledgement that ‘otherness’ is always already here, always already present.

Nietzsche has reportedly stated that “[o]ur writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts” (qtd in Carr, The Shallows, 2010: 19). If this is so, it affects a writer’s performance and perception of both the text and the surrounding world.

Drawing on Thomas O. Beebee’s transmesis – a term which refers to “literary authors’ use of fiction to depict acts of translation” (2012: 3) – this paper explores literary fictions of translators as sites of human imagination that engage with public perceptions, expectations, and collective images of translation and translators, and how we deal with “the foreign and the domestic”, “understand ourselves and others” (Kaindl, “The Remaking of the Translator’s Reality”, 2018). Interest in these fictions has been growing in the field of translation and translator studies, especially over the last decade. Scant attention has, however, been paid to translators’ writing tools and how they may shape notions of translation, translators' working habits and methods, and translators’ affective response to their work, otherness, and the world around them. Whether semi-organic (pen) or technology-mediated (computer), writing tools allow translators to express a double voice and subjectivity, theirs and that of the author they are translating, and to perform their own creativity. In this sense, translators’ writing tools can make translation a site of hospitality or, by contrast, of hostility.

This exploratory study conceptualises translators’ writing instruments as a plot device by comparing through a close reading approach three literary representations of translators into, from, and somehow related to the Japanese language: Hotel Iris (Y. Ogawa, 1996); The Translator (N. Schuyler, 2013); and The Extinction of Irena Rey (J. Croft, 2024). The first narrative portrays the translator’s pen as a haptic experience that eventually symbolises destruction, that is, the translator’s ability to inflict harm on others and his translation through his hands. Schuyler’s novel openly questions translation as “a mechanical process” (23) and explores the power of chalk on a blackboard as the metaphorical enactment of the translator’s “black box”, one which challenges the authorial auctoritas. Croft’s novel has no Japanese translators, but Japanese hovers as a fetish language of international consecration into which the author “most earnestly” desired (16) to be translated. The author, who goes missing, and her eight translators all use computers in contrast to the natural environment of the forest where they are translating. Despite the presence of the digital, suspicion arises as to its reliability.

In a nutshell, the aim is to assess how fictional translators’ different writing tools shape conceptualisations of translation and ways of feeling, perceiving, and hosting otherness – i.e., the foreign language, the source text, and translation itself.

This paper explores pseudotranslation as a mode of composing texts, proposing it as a specific way of positioning the writing self as fluid in terms of culture, language, geography, and identity. This proposal builds on B. Rath’s (2014) suggestion to conceptualize pseudotranslation within Comparative Literature as a mode of reading. Departing from Montesquieu’s Lettres persanes (1721), Rath urges World Literature scholars to explore pseudotranslation in relation to imagination and hospitality.

I wish to extend Rath’s proposal so as to explore how pseudotranslation may also serve as a mode of composing a text and, consequently, a way of conceiving authorship. The analysis will focus on Montesquieu’s text and two of Voltaire’s Oriental fables (1746 and 1747), examining the image and positioning of the textual author. These three narratives share a common setting in imagined Oriental spaces — namely, (an invented) Persia, Persepolis, and ancient Babylonia. Voltaire wrote The World as It Goes and Zadig or the Fate during a period of Oriental vogue at the French court, epitomized by the 1745 event where the entire court dressed à la turque for the wedding of the heir apparent (Pomeau, 1996: 93). Notably, the concept of masquerade has recently been linked to pseudotranslation (Lopes, 2016; Moniz, 2024).

Thus analysis is grounded in historical data on 18th-century French literary pseudotranslations and contemporary reflections on the embodied nature of translation. Allthree pseudotranslations under discussion were published anonymously, and both Montesquieu and Voltaire never officially claimed authorship, as convincingly demonstrated by Michael Cardy (2021). This reluctance to own the texts, even after their names appeared in paratextual frames (issued by the publishers), may be interpreted as evidence that their writing was shaped more by a translational imagination than by reliance on domestic repertoire. This approach inherently entails an experience of disguise and otherness.

Cardy, M. 2021. Le monde comme il va: critical edition by Michaer Cardy. In: Voltaire 3B Oeuvres de 1746-1748 (II). Voltaire Foundation.

Lahiri, J. 2022. Translating Myself and Others. Princeton University Press.

Lopes, A. 2016. “Invisible man: sketches for a portrait of Mário Domingues, intellectual and (pseudo)translator”. In Authorizing Translation, ed. Michelle Woods, 61-79. Routledge.

Moniz, M. L. 2024. “Pseudotraduções em Portugal (1930-1989)”. In Tradução e tradutores em Portugal: um contributo para a sua história (séculos XVIII-XIX), org. Teresa Seruya, 347-393. Tinta da China.

Pomeau, R. 1996. “Note sur Le Monde comme il va”. In Voltaire. Romans et Contes, 93-94. GF Flammarion.

Rath, B. 2014. "Pseudotranslation." In ACLA. State of the Discipline Report.

Since 2018, the artist Daniel Blaufuks is working on a visual-textual non-diary composed by landscape A4 sheets containing different archival materials and notes. The sheets are numbered, corresponding to one day each, and intersect private with public documents, (unreferenced) quotations with newly written fragments, different languages with (snapshot) photographs and old newspaper clippings. In this paper I will focus on the first larger exhibition of the project, The days are numbered (MAAT, Lisbon, 2024), and the corresponding photobook. Putting Blaufuks’ work in conversation with Walter Benjmain’s thought on memory, translation and (mechanical) reproduction, I will argue that The days are numbered is not only a sensible reflection about (human) decay and finitude, but also about a profound sense of contamination and affectedness of the self. Sidestepping the spatial and temporal coordinates that characterize many theorizations of hospitality, Blaufuks’ project rather invites to think through relationality and welcome in the context of historical responsibility and complex modes of implication (Rothberg 2019). Following this invitation, I propose to analyze Blaufuks’ project as a collection and archive of Benjaminian constellations of “Nowtime” (“Jetztzeit”) which by refusing the readability of the past seek to lay open the hidden “messianic” potentialities of remembrance (“eingedenken”). Exploring the role of materiality and the use of different media, I aim to show how The days are numbered seeks to think through the impact of technological change and the risk of the depolitization of art to ask how relationality might be imagined otherwise.

In Cécile Wajsbrot’s 2021 novel Nevermore, a translator struggling with grief and loss, translates the “Time Passes” section of Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, from English into French, sentence by sentence. The unnamed translator moves to a city, Dresden, that had once been destroyed and is surrounded by a language that she is neither translating into or from. This paper examines the reparative process of translation as an act of hospitality in the world of the inhospitable: Wajsbrot’s translator keeps returning to places decimated or abandoned by modern technology and humans: Dresden, Chernobyl, the High Line, Foula, as she contemplates translating the Ramsay’s house, emptied of humans. The representation, in the novel, of the embodied translator, reacting with affect to the text she is translating suggests that process of translation allows for the kind of human and ecological renewal seen in the decimated places she describes.

This paper also focuses on the how the process of translation is theorized as an embodied act within the novel, “in which theorising remains open to the twists and turns of its practice, an experiment in thinking with translation rather than a straightforward synthetisation of its craft” and in which “transient theories of doing and thinking translation surface and remain entangled in the first-person singular” (Grass, 9). Following Klaus Kaindl’s call for a rehumanized Translator Studies in which we are “translating human beings” (Kaindl, 2) with all their “illogicalities, fuzziness, subjectivity, ephemerality” (22), this paper posits that Nevermore’s fictional portrayal of the subjective choices of the translator at a moment of personal and planetary grief allows us a way into re-humanizing how we might theorize translation as a human and hospitable process. Finally, the paper analyzes Tess Lewis’s 2024 English-language translation of Wajsbrot’s novel, and her collaboration with Wajsbrot.

At a time when technological advances and the proliferation of AI-generated narratives seem to suggest the possibility of ever-present, perfect communication between speakers of all languages, reflecting on the intricacies of human translation emerges as a radical practice of linguistic hospitality and offers an opportunity to rethink how the inherent fragilities of human, embodied translators can be crucial towards achieving mutual understanding between cultures and creating more hospitable translational communities in which the labor of (literary) translators is also valued.

Recently published “translation memoirs” – a subgenre at the intersection of translation studies and life writing in which literary translators reflect on their creative practice (Grass & Robert Foley 2024) – attest to the interest in understanding translation as a human, relational gesture rather than a mere instrumental and technical procedure that serves to facilitate information across languages. Instead, translation memoirs by Kate Briggs, Jhumpa Lahiri or Doireann Ní Ghríofa, to name but a few, have opened up a space of hospitable dialogue about literary translation that reveal “many of the hidden avenues of translation that get passed over in silence or eclipsed in invisibility: the archive of hesitations, doubts, and errors, the personal and political negotiations that must happen in the record of translation subjects’ travels between languages” (Grass and Robert-Foley 2024, 2). In this paper, I aim to give center stage to the importance of such recent writing trends which emphasize the complexity of human translation as a form of relational and embodied translational hospitality: building on the aforementioned genre of the translation memoir, I want to expand the scope of translation life writing to include recent epistolary writings between writers and translators who have also engaged in meaningful conversation about translation. More specifically, I propose to close read the letter exchange between Kate Briggs and Lisa Robertson published in the online magazine Granta in January 2024, in dialogue with excerpts from Brigg’s 2017 translation memoir This Little Art. By thinking about translation as a friendly conversation with oneself (in a memoir) and with another (in letters) made up of joyful hesitations and doubts, healthy disagreements and shared stories, I hope to contribute to the ongoing revival of literary translation as a human, dialogical activity that fosters translational hospitality. As Mexican author Jazmina Barrera noted in a recent letter to her English translator Christina MacSweeney, “[she has] come to think about friendship as a very long conversation. One where distances and intensities are constantly changing, one that has a lot of stops [...]. Translation is also a form of conversation: an actual one, with the author; an implied one, with the text; a constant one, with yourself or with the person who translates next to you.”

This paper will explore Suzette Haden Elgin’s feminist science fiction classic Native Tongue (1984), the first of her trilogy of the same name, which imagines a dystopian, patriarchal future where women have been stripped of all rights and are viewed as property. Their existence is limited to serving men – the “master[s] of the household” (Derrida 2000, 4) – as wives, mothers and translators at a time when space exploration and colonization have led to frequent interplanetary communication and negotiations.

The paper proposes to analyze Elgin’s novel to reflect on the relationship between translation and hospitality from the women’s perspective and the power of language to alter their condition. With that goal in mind, it will look into two spaces where women find a sense of belonging and reclaim some agency: 1) the interpreting booth, and 2) the Barren House.

Regarding the first, despite all the technological advancements, translation remains a human activity, namely, a female task. Women from linguistic families, known as “lines”, are trained from birth in several human and alien languages to respond to the growing demand for translation. Ironically, their linguistic skills, intended to keep them overworked and under strict control, end up empowering them. As the sole proficient speakers of alien languages and experts on their customs, women become both essential and irreplaceable in all exchanges with the strange(r). Men depend on their knowledge to conduct business and avoid cultural conflicts and misunderstandings.

The second is a space for women who can no longer bear children and strengthen the numbers of the “lines”. While originally designed by men as a place to hold those deemed unwanted or useless, the Barren House gains a different meaning to women. It becomes their safe haven, a place they can call “home”, and the heart of their resistance movement. Left to their own devices, they slowly and secretly develop an exclusively female language, Láadan, to freely interact with each other and express their feelings, experiences, and perceptions. As a language by women and for women, thus essentially untranslatable to outsiders, it allows them to challenge their hostile and oppressive lived reality and conceive a new, more hospitable one.

This paper explores the intersection of translation, hospitality, and the mother figure through Elissa Marder's The Mother in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, alongside the works of queer Chilean authors Gabriela Mistral and Pedro Lemebel. Taking Walter Benjamin’s reflections on technical reproducibility as a point of departure, I argue that the maternal, as theorized by Marder and depicted in Chilean literature, serves as a site of both translation and hospitality—resisting mechanization while opening onto relationality and difference. If translation operates as imaginative interpretation, then the maternal is a translational condition par excellence: generating and unsettling meaning, resisting the reduction of the human to a standardized form.

The mother figure, as elaborated by Marder and reflected in Mistral's poetry and Lemebel's narratives, is not a static origin but a threshold where language, experience, and subjectivity emerge unpredictably. Like translation, the maternal is an act of hospitality—an opening to the foreign, the arrival of the other. Yet, contemporary capitalism and digital technologies threaten to reconfigure both translation and maternity into functions of efficiency and production rather than sites of radical openness. This paper interrogates how hospitality, as a function of translation, might resist the instrumentalization of both language and the maternal, affirming translation as an inherently fractured, relational, and ethical act.

By thinking the maternal alongside translation, as portrayed in the works of Mistral and Lemebel, I propose reconsidering the place of imagination in an age where technological mediation raises urgent questions about agency, embodiment, and ethics. If, as Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o suggests, translation is ‘the language of languages,’ then the maternal might be reimagined as an archi-originary translation: a locus where meaning, identity, and relation are continually negotiated. In this sense, the mother, like the translator, becomes the figure through which hospitality is extended and redefined, offering a way to think translation beyond mechanization and as a practice of ethical encounter.

This theoretical framework finds resonance in Chilean literary works that engage with themes of hospitality, the maternal, and, unexpectedly, translation. The writings of Nobel Prize-winning poet Gabriela Mistral and author and performance artist Pedro Lemebel provide concrete literary explorations of these ideas, demonstrating how hospitality and maternity evoke the dynamics of translation. Their framing of maternity and hospitality offers a perspective through which translation can be reconsidered as a site of political resistance, queer and polymorphic creativity, and ethical relation within specific historical and cultural contexts.

This paper takes the "Qushui Liushang" (cups drifted on meandering waterway), a shared literary ritual in East Asia, as a vivid case of cultural exchange and civilizational mutual learning in the region. From the perspective of academic research, through theories such as the concept of communication rituals, it deeply explores and interprets the rich connotations and profound significance embodied in Lanting culture. Lanting Gathering in the ninth year of Yonghe had a profound influence on surrounding regions of China. The core elements of the ritual—poetic creation, calligraphy, and philosophical reflection—remained consistent, each country adapted the practice to reflect its unique cultural values and aesthetic preferences. A "winding stream" site called Poseokjeong has been perfectly preserved in the southern suburbs of Gyeongju, South Korea. Throughout Japan such as Kyoto's Kamigamo Shrine, traces of "Qushui Liushang" remain. In Vietnam, Emperor Lê Hiến Tông constructed the Flowing Cup Pavilion within the imperial palace. The culture of Lanting embodies the philosophical ideas and concepts on life and the world shared across East Asia, rooted in the Confucian, Buddhist, and Taoist traditions of ancient China. In South Korea’s ancient shamanic songs, hyangga, sijo, one can sense the intrinsic, organic connection and harmony between human life and the universe. The Japanese view of the birth of gods and the formation of the human world is almost equal, as the impermanence of divine death is deeply connected to the transience of human life and death. Over thousands of years, East Asian cultures have shared a nearly unanimous resonance in their reflections on life. Such shared contemplation is perfectly encapsulated by Wang Xizhi's observation in The Preface to the Orchid Pavilion. Moreover, the "Qushui Liushang" ritual embodies the ancient ecological philosophy of harmony between humans and nature ("Tianren Heyi") and an aesthetic preference for curves, as symbolized by the "Eternal Harmony" of flowing water. East Asian countries are geographically adjacent and share a cultural emphasis on the importance of the natural environment. This tradition established a model for integrating reflections on life with joyous gatherings amidst natural beauty. It continued to spread and endure, shaped by the shared yet distinct cultural traditions and imagery of East Asian countries, including their views on nature and life and death. By analyzing the homogeneity and heterogeneity of traditional cultures across East Asia, we can gain a deeper understanding of the complex interplay between cultural continuity and variation in East Asia, and uncover the hidden ideological and cultural essence within shared rituals and forms, thereby promoting the humanistic and spiritual values of Chinese and East Asian traditions, deepening and broadening cultural exchange and mutual learning between East Asia and the world, fostering meaningful dialogue and harmonious coexistence among humanity.

As a renowned 20th-century writer and a representative of the stream-of-consciousness novel, Faulkner has had a profound impact on Chinese and even world literature. This influence has inspired a group of Chinese scholars to conduct academic research on him. Over the years, Chinese Faulkner studies have yielded fruitful results, encompassing the fields of influence studies, parallel studies, and cross-cultural studies, with distinct characteristics of comparative literature, making them an excellent case for comparative literature analysis. On the one hand, reassessing Faulkner studies in China from a comparative literature perspective broadens our understanding of Faulkner’s influence and provides a unique Chinese experience in Faulkner studies. On the other hand, examining China’s Faulkner studies from the perspective of world literature injects a global perspective and value into China’s Faulkner studies, aiming to better promote world literature studies.

It can be said that from the perspective of world literature, we can see that Faulkner research in China: on the one hand, Chinese Faulkner research has constructed the Chinese experience of Faulkner research with China’s unique culture and context. On the other hand, it provides a world perspective and practical cases that overflow the boundaries of Chinese national literature and constructs universal literary experience and aesthetic values. Both of them are integrated into the construction of world literature with the experience of cross-cultural literary exchange and interaction, providing a reference for the construction and reconstruction of world literature. With its possibility of cross-cultural influence, cross-cultural similarity, and interdisciplinary exploration of mutual interpretation, Chinese Faulkner research provides theoretical support for world literature, and also demonstrates the vivid practice of literary interpretation in the context of world literature through specific cases. In the final analysis, Chinese Faulkner research, a regional cross-cultural research practice with a global perspective, provides a possibility of cross-cultural communication, which is the premise for the realization of world literature. In addition, placing Chinese Faulkner research in the perspective of world literature will give Faulkner research a wider meaning. At the same time, taking care of Faulkner with a global perspective will enable Chinese researchers to form a conscious awareness of dialogue with international scholars, and better promote the breadth and depth of Faulkner research.

This research will interrogate how the Polish British writer Joseph Conrad, as an outcast of British society, possesses a cultural self-awareness by presenting the exotic people and world outside Britain. After abandoning his maritime career, Conrad turned to writing novels and stories that deeply drew upon his seafaring experiences. These experiences shaped his depictions of life and death in the jungles of the Malay Archipelago and Africa, and alienated boats floating above the temperamental seas unknown to land people. Frequently Conrad brings up cases of cultural conflicts and trans-cultural communications. Even tragic death caused by the encounter between westerners and the indigenous occur repeatedly in his texts like “Amy Foster” and “Karin, A Memory”. How men and women from different cultural background deal with each other is obviously a motif haunting Conrad’s literary creation. As calling himself a “homo duplex”(the double man), Conrad’s identity of both a Pole and a British gives him a double vision to see the world while the hideous years on sea forms his habit of intensified mediation and reflection upon different cultures. This cultural self-consciousness allows him to evaluate not only the otherness of foreign cultures but also the assumptions, limitations, and contradictions of his own cultural backgrounds which are both from Poland the oppressed and Britain the Empire. In Conrad’s case, his self-consciousness as a Pole in British society, and his critical engagement with the imperialist mindset of the time, makes him acutely aware of how Western cultures perceive and interact with the exotic. In this aspect, Conrad’s consciousness could be understood in relation to Fei Xiaotong’s “cultural self-awareness” refering to a “self-knowledge” on the level of culture and the whole humanity. In the turn of the century when Conrad lived, cultural transformation would be inevitable for British Empire, its colonized areas and other European countries in competition. Hence, cultural self-awareness deeply embedded in Conrad’s works is of great significance in terms of exploring the value of different cultures and the fate of humanity in an increasingly turbulent world manifested at the end of the 19th century, an issue that still bears significant relevance today.

Wenxue Xunkan (Literature Trimonthly) plays an indispensable role in the introduction of World Literature into China. Existing studies examine the literary contention and background of the journal but lack further investigation into its endeavors in translating World Literature. In this process, the editors functioned as patrons. They influenced the literary field via the journal by managing its content and translating selected articles. The current study also examines how the editors employed World Literature to explore a new path of Chinese literature and justify China’s entry into the international community. It then discusses defiance and exploration, two of the main themes of translated works, based on the journal's reality concerns. Finally, it analyzes the translations of literary history and critique as vital sources of new knowledge since they provide substantial references for the study of Chinese literature.

Abstract: The perception of the independence of ancient Greek civilization and the belief that Western civilization originates solely from ancient Greece are among the historical foundations of Western superiority and Eurocentrism. However, ancient Greek civilization was not immune to the influences of ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations. The spread of civilizations across regions occurs through the mobility of their members, and mutual exchange and learning between civilizations is a fundamental law of their development. Ancient Greece was never geographically isolated from the East. The Eastern civilizations around the Mediterranean continuously contributed to the rise of ancient Greece through trade, migration, and other exchanges, laying the foundation for the flourishing of ancient Greek civilization. The formation of this brilliant civilization was never a product of isolation. Efforts to obscure the influence of Eastern civilizations on ancient Greece, to disparage Eastern civilizations, and to disregard historical facts must be addressed and clarified. The wheel of history, driven by exchange and mutual learning, turns alongside the progression of time. Historical truths must not be distorted by constructs such as "civilizational superiority" or "civilizational centrality," and ancient Greek civilization is no exception.

This paper aims to study the configurations of the fictional unusual in short stories from the books Cursed Bunny, by the Korean writer Chung Bora; Voladoras, by the Ecuadorian writer Mónica Ojeda and Fresh Dirt from the Grave, by the Bolivian writer Giovanna Rivero. In recent years, many Latin American women writers have been publishing novels and short stories that intertwine political, social, and gender issues with different strands of the fictional unusual. The works of these writers are making a significant impact on the publishing market, to the extent that some critics consider this movement a new Latin American Boom. Simultaneously, in South Korea, there has been a rise in women writers producing fantastic literature, often in dialogue with feminist movements such 4B ("no dating, no sex, no marriage and no children") and Feminist Reboot. Drawing on Garcia's (2022) ideas about the fictional unusual, horror, and terror; Santos’s (2017), Mazzutti and Ortega’s (2023), and Zaratin’s (2019) theories on the relationship between the fantastic and gender issues; and Mata’s (2023) insights on World Literature, we analyze, from a comparative perspective, the short stories "The Head," "The Embodiment," and "Snare" (Cursed Bunny); "The Voladoras" and "Coagulated Blood" (Voladoras); and "Blessed are the Meek" and "It looks human when it rains" (Fresh Dirt from the Grave). Our findings reveal that these writers employ diverse manifestations of the unusual—such as the strange, the fantastic, the marvelous, horror, and terror—as strategies to address feminist themes in their works. Furthermore, the converging points in stories written by women from such diverse countries suggest the possibility of viewing literature as something that transcends its place of origin while remaining deeply connected to its original context.

In real life, factors related to race, ethnicity, class, gender, and nationality often intertwine with each other, forming a joint force that confines Mexican Americans to a multiply marginalized existence, and making it difficult for them to achieve upward social mobility. Mexican American writers, however, hold diverse perspectives on this issue, and their literary representations and appeals vary accordingly. The present paper takes as a case study Under the Feet of Jesus (1995), a representative work by Helena María Viramontes (1954– ), a professor of English at Cornell University. After analyzing the politics of mobility depicted in Viramontes’s work, along with the narrative strategies and stylistic choices she employs, the paper evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of her approach from both political and literary perspectives, and furthermore, explores the characteristics, problems, and potential solutions in contemporary Mexican American realist literature.

Pú Sōnglíng (蒲松龄, 1640-1715) est au conte chinois ce que Perrault, Leprince de Beaumont, les Grimm, Andersen sont aux contes français, allemand et danois. C'est du moins de "contes" que l'on qualifie systématiquement ses récits. Pourtant, ceux-ci dépassent largement le seul genre du conte, témoignant d'une richesse qui, d'un point de vue occidental, pourrait être qualifiée d'avant-gardiste, touchant à la fois aux antiques genres des fables parénétique et étiologique, tout aussi bien qu'aux genres modernes de la nouvelle-instant, de la nouvelle fantastique, voire du conte science-fictionnel, ou encore de la description pseudo-scientifique d'une cryptozoologie. Plusieurs récits seront passés en revue, des plus iconiques, tels que « La Peau peinte » (《画皮》, « Huà pí ») ou « Bai Qiulian, la femme-poisson » (《白秋练》, « Bái Qiūliàn »), aux moins connus mais non moins fascinants récits, tels que « Le Chien sauvage » (〈野狗〉, « Yě gǒu »), « La Bête noire » (〈黑兽〉, « Hēi shòu »), « La Palourde » (〈蛤〉, « Gé »).

It is not by chance that the literary studies curriculum was one of the most visible trenches of decolonial activism in the UK, especially in the aftermath of the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. Student-led demand for change has not gone unheard and, in the name of inclusion, changes were made without the adequate level of reflection that the degree of transformation required demanded. Is the diversification of ethnic background and nationality of authors in a syllabus the kind of change to be brought by an approach that calls itself decolonial?

Departing from the pitfalls of curricular inclusion as a decolonial gesture in literary studies curricula, and building on the lessons on epistemic diversification learnt through the success of postcolonial studies, this paper explores the potential of a decolonial praxis as a way forward to deliver the kind of transformation that the approach has the capacity to inspire and deliver. Building on the definition of praxis by the Brazilian scholar Paulo Freire (1985), this paper will argue that to live up to the liberating promise of the decolonial approach, literary studies must develop a conscious approach to process – which I conceive as the field’s structure and method – as a basis for action that is transformative and capable of unlocking more of literary studies’ untapped potential as worldly episteme.

Through an analysis of the rise of vernacular literary studies in the back of the institutionalisation of the discipline of English in the UK and the development of the literary research method in this context, I argue that the regard for a decolonial praxis is the most fruitful and least co-optable way forward to deliver some of the decolonial promises in a discipline embedded in a history of privilege and exclusion.