Nie Zhenzhao, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies/Zhejiang University, People’s Republic of China

“Oral Literature and the Cognitive Principles of Brain Text”

Both oral literature and written literature exist by virtue of an underlying text. When classified according to the medium in which a text is embodied, texts can be divided into three categories: brain text, written text, and electronic text. Brain text refers to the memories preserved within the human brain; written text denotes characters or symbols recorded on material substrates; and electronic text comprises binary codes stored via digital devices. Among these three forms, brain text is the primordial source, with written symbols representing its symbolic manifestation and electronic text its digital form. For a long time, scholarship has maintained that before the advent of written symbols, oral literature was not text-mediated but transmitted solely by word of mouth, thereby rendering oral literature a literature devoid of text. However, this traditional dichotomy between oral and written literature obscures the underlying cognitive basis common to all literary forms, for it fails to distinguish between the method of oral transmission and the literary substance itself. In reality, it is not oral literature that is passed on by word of mouth but the brain text preserved in the human mind. Prior to the emergence of written symbols, the earliest literary forms, such as poetry and narrative, were stored in the brain in the form of neural-cognitive structures, thereby constituting brain text. Brain text is a biological text and it embodies the perceptions and cognitions of phenomena as preserved in memory, comprising image-based concepts derived from sensory experiences alongside abstract concepts expressed through linguistic symbols. Thus, oral literature exists through the mediation of brain text. Once written symbols appeared, the recorded versions of oral literature essentially captured the underlying brain text. Without brain text, there would be no literary content to transmit orally, and consequently, oral literature would not exist.

Wen-chin Ouyang, SOAS, University of London, UK

“Shadow Theatre, Ways of Seeing and Comparative Literature: Towards Multilingualism as Method”

Light, darkness and shadow are integral to seeing, imagination and works of art. Science, such as optics, and technology, such as spectacles, camera, and film projector, are today indispensable in how we visualise the world in our representation of it and, more importantly, how we receive and comprehend a work of art. Shadow Theatre, as story, performance and entanglement of literature and technology, offers multiple avenues for theorizing and practicing comparative literature without being bugged down by the modern temporary frame and the West influencing the East paradigm or abandoning the role cultural encounters play in intercultural exchanges. The evolution of Shadow Theatre has been informed by its travels around the world across regions, languages, storytelling traditions, and cultures as well as developments in science and technology. It is multilingual in three ways. It speaks the languages of the parts of the world it has sojourned, it combines word, image, sound and performance in its expression, and it entangles science and technology in works of art. It points to multilingualism as method for networking languages, storytelling traditions, literature, science and technology, and the world.