讀照片的人：張愛玲小說的照片、情感交際與記憶
分享嘉賓 Speaker:
Prof. HUANG Hsuan-chang 黃璿璋教授 (Department of Chinese Literature, CCU)
主持人 Moderator:
Prof. LIN Pei-yin 林姵吟教授 (School of Chinese, HKU)
日期時間 Date & Time: November 4, 2025 (Tue) 17:00-18:30pm (HKT)
語言 Language: 普通話/國語 Mandarin
地點 Venue: KK201, 2/F, K. K. Leung Building, Main Campus, HKU
授課模式 Delivery Mode: Face-to-face & Online
摘要 Abstract:
張愛玲的寫作承接《海上花列傳》、《歇浦潮》等晚清以降通俗小說敘述傳統，而其小說情節也存在許多相似的日常活動，呈現上海市民的生活樣貌，其中「拍照片」便是典型的例子。過去對張愛玲的視覺文化研究，多半聚焦「技術化觀視」或「電影化敘事」的分析。然而，若回到小說文本本身，可發現「拍照片」、「讀照片」與「收藏照片」等具體行為，在故事中扮演核心角色。張愛玲晚年的《對照記》，透過閱讀自己的老照片回溯人生；而她的小說人物亦反覆凝視、解讀照片——這些看似平常的動作，不僅推動情節，更深刻介入人物關係與情感網絡。
本次演講主要探索：在張愛玲小說中，照片如何不僅作為再現工具，而成為介入人物關係、形塑情感秩序的「日常性物件」？透過細讀多個文本案例，在拍攝、收藏與觀看「照片」之間，可勾勒小說家如何構築人物間「在乎」與「不在乎」的情感網絡，悄然界定關係的親疏遠近。同時，當「讀照片」成為普遍的現代經驗，它又如何催生新的美學感知？而凝視照片的過程並非單純的時間回溯，亦為一種過去與現在交錯、甚至斷裂的複雜感知。意即，照片在張愛玲小說中，深刻介入並塑造人物的內在感知與外在關係——而此過程所開啟的新感官經驗，正是張愛玲回應現代性、並形成獨特「感覺現代性」的關鍵所在。
Eileen Chang’s writing inherits the narrative tradition of popular novels since the late Qing dynasty, such as The Sing-Song Girls of Shanghai and Xiepu chao (Tides of the Huangpu River). Her plots often feature everyday activities that portray the lives of Shanghai’s urbanites, with photo-taking being a prime example. While previous scholarship on Chang’s relation to visual culture has largely focused on “the technologized visuality” or “cinematic narration,” a return to the texts themselves reveals that concrete actions—taking, “reading,” and collecting photographs—play a central role. In her later work Dui Zhao Ji (Looking at Old Photos), Chang revisits her own life through photographs, just as her fictional characters repeatedly gaze at and interpret them. These seemingly mundane acts not only drive the narrative but also profoundly shape interpersonal dynamics and emotional networks.
This lecture explores how, in Chang’s fiction, photographs transcend their role as mere representational tools to become “everyday objects” that actively intervene in relationships and structure the emotional order. Through close readings of various texts, I will delineate how the acts of photographing, collecting, and viewing photos construct a web of “attachment” and “indifference” that subtly defines intimacy and distance. Furthermore, as “reading photos” becomes a quintessential modern experience, how does it engender a new aesthetic sensibility? The process of gazing at a photograph is not a simple nostalgic return but a complex perception where past and present intersect and even fracture. Ultimately, this new sensory experience, unlocked by the photograph’s intervention in characters’ inner and outer lives, is key to Eileen Chang’s response to modernity and the formation of her distinctive sensory modernity.
講者簡介 About the Speaker:
黃璿璋 政治大學中國文學博士，現任中正大學中國文學系助理教授。研究領域為近現代文學與文化、視覺文化，獲臺灣中文學會四賢博士論文獎第一名與政大博士學位論文獎，研究論文發表於《漢學研究》、《臺大中文學報》、《中外文學》等期刊，著有《後經典時代：現代視閾中的「四大奇書」及其改寫》。
Prof. HUANG Hsuan-chang Ph.D. in Chinese Literature (NCCU); currently Assistant Professor in the Department of Chinese Literature (CCU). His research focuses on modern and contemporary literature and culture, as well as visual culture. He received the First Prize of the Four Sages Dissertation Award from the Taiwan Association of Chinese Literature and the Dissertation Award from NCCU. His research articles have been published in journals such as Chinese Studies, Journal of Chinese Literature of NTU, and Chung Wai Literary. He is the author of The Post-Canon Age: Rewritings of The Four Master Works in Modern Perspectives.
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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