Month: October 2023

Speaker:
Robert Hariman, Professor, School of Communication, Northwestern University

Moderator:
Daniel Elam, Assistant Professor, Department of Comparative Literature, HKU

Date: Wednesday, October 25, 2023
Time: 5:00 pm (Hong Kong Time)
Venue: Room 1069, 10/F, Run Run Shaw Tower, HKU & on Zoom

A rebooted formalism might be able to provide resources for thinking across nature and culture. The study of form, however, is complicated by the ubiquity of forms: the term is primitive and empty, while referring to spoons, skeletons, galaxies, equations, nursery rhymes, and everything else that is not “without form and void.” As a provisional solution to this problem, I focus on formal objects: familiar, distinctive things that are widely reproduced and valued because of their shape, resonance, or other formal quality. By examining the formal object of the shell and how it articulates the pattern of the spiral, some features of formal appeal and response become evident. Formal objects also can expose characteristic problems in formalism, as shell/spiral exposes the mistaken commitments to meaning and totalization.

Robert Hariman is Professor of Communication Studies at Northwestern University. He is the author of Political Style: The Artistry of Power and of two volumes with John Louis Lucaites: No Caption Needed: Iconic Photographs, Public Culture, and Liberal Democracy, and The Public Image: Photography and Civic Spectatorship.

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倒掉的塔，凋萎的花：張愛玲文學中的愛情形式

分享嘉賓 Speaker: 濱田麻矢 教授 Prof. Maya HAMADA

主持人 Moderator: 黃心村 教授 Prof. Nicole HUANG

日期時間 Date & Time: October 25, 2023 (Wed) 16:30-18:00pm
語言 Language: Putonghua
地點 Venue (UPDATED): CPD-3.28, Central Podium Level 3, Centennial Campus, HKU

摘要 Abstract:
民國時期小說中反覆描繪的「純粹而高貴的愛情」在五四時期備受文人推崇，在戰後卻被曖昧地擱置。自由戀愛所孕育出的悖論，我們只有在張愛玲的小說，尤其是後期作品中才能看到。在象徵禮教的雷峰塔坍倒後，自由戀愛作為一種基於人類真情的、不可否認的精神活動為人們所歌頌。然而，有時候「愛」之花並不能永遠持續綻放。張愛玲不願意通過「婚姻」、「子女」等裝置來謀求愛情的持續，她認為愛情應該是「不問值不值得」的。正因如此，當她自己的專一、排他的愛情被作爲開放性關係，並成為「三美中的一美」被消費時，她的愛情只能凋萎了。本報告首先梳理自由戀愛在中國興起（封建婚姻制度衰退近似於雷峰塔坍倒）的時代背景，其次再針對隱藏在張愛玲作品中的重要因素（以西湖和白蛇傳爲中心）進行考察，探討潛藏在張愛玲心中的對於自由戀愛的複雜思考。

The “pure and noble love” repeatedly depicted during the Republican era was highly esteemed by the literati during the May Fourth age, but ambiguously shelved in the post-war period. The paradox that free love breeds can only be seen in Eileen Chang’s novels, especially in her later works. After the Fall of the Leifeng Pagoda, a symbol of ritualism, free love was celebrated as an undeniably spiritual activity based on true human feelings. However, the flower of love cannot bloom forever. Eileen Chang was unwilling to seek the continuity of love through such devices as “marriage” and “children”; she believed that love should be “without asking whether it is worth it or not”. It is for this reason that when her own exclusive love was treated as an open relationship and consumed as “one of the three beauties”, her love could only wither. This talk firstly examines the background of the rise of free love in China (the decline of the feudal marriage system is approximately equal to the Fall of the Leifeng Pagoda), and then focuses on the important factors hidden in Eileen Chang’s works (centering on the West Lake and the Legend of the White Snake), to explore the complex thoughts on free love hidden in Eileen Chang’s mind.

講者簡介 About the Speaker:
濱田麻矢 日本關西人，畢業於京都大學，文學博士。現為神户大學人文學研究科教授，主要研究對象是民國小說中的性别想像。近年出版專著《少女中國：書寫/被書寫的女學生的一百年》（『少女中国：書かれた女学生と書く女学生の百年』、岩波書店、2021），譯書有張愛玲短篇集《當中國認識愛的時候》（『中国が愛を知ったころ』岩波書店、2017）等。

Maya Hamada is Professor in Graduate School of Humanities and has worked at Kobe University since 1999. Her research interests centre on Chinese modern literature, especially female writers during 20th Century. She initially focused on the novels of the 1940s, with specific regard to the writings of Eileen Chang, but the scope of her research has since expanded significantly. She began to incorporate ‘girls’ and ‘female students’ as major keywords in her analyses. She is the author of Girl’s China: Female bildungsroman in 20th Century (Iwanami shoten, 2021).

This event is held as part of the New Directions in Eileen Chang Studies Lecture Series |
張愛玲研究新方向講座系列 
Co-hosted by School of Chinese and Department of Comparative Literature, HKU
Co-sponsored by Louis Cha Fund for Chinese studies & East/West studies in the Faculty
& Center for the Study of Globalization and Cultures (CSGC)

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