The Challenge of Writing a World Literary History

The writing of history has encountered many challenges in twenty-century theoretical discussions,and postmodernism and deconstruction in particular have made literary history all but impossible in the West.Because world literature today remains the canonical works of Western literature,while much of the non-Western literatures and even“minor”"European literatures remain unknown and untranslated,a world history of literature is absolutely necessary to introduce the yet-unknown world literature to a global readership beyond the original linguistic and cultural milieux of those unknown literary works.Translating those yet-unknown works into English for a wider circulation is the first step to make world literature go beyond Eurocentrism,and writing a world history of literature will help us know the basic situation of the world's literary traditions from a truly global perspective.

The History of Czech Literature in China

During a century-long time span,a remarkable array of Czech literary works had been introduced to China,marked by selections of different writers,genres,and themes.This study attempts to discuss what Czech literary works have been translated in China since its beginning in 1921.Besides the selection of texts for introduction,attention has also been given to the formats of their publication,the adoption of introduction approach,choice of intermediate languages,the numbers of different versions,and the frequency of their publication,as well as the textual and paratextual features of the end Chinese products.

Chinese Tradition in the World Literature:Review of Zhang Longxi's A Historyof ChineseLiterature

This essay reviews Zhang Longxi's A History of Chinese Literature.The book covers Chinese literature from its very beginning to modern times.It emphasizes texts'literary and aesthetic qualities when evaluating and historicizing literature.The book demonstrates the importance of canons in literary history,using Chinese tradition as an example.Therefore,it also brings the Chinese tradition into the broader framework of world literature.Reading Zhang's concise historical overview of Chinese literature,we can better understand the interplay between literary tradition and the individual talent.Zhang Longxi has skillfully combined the writing of a history of literature with literary criticism in this book.Zhang's successful attempt informs literary scholars of possible paradigms of compiling literary history in a post-cultural-studies theoretical context.

The Rise of Xiaoshuo as a Literary Concept： Lu Xun and the Question of ＂Fiction＂ in Chinese Literature

Originally derived from historical and philosophical writings, xiaoshuo is the modem Chinese term for fictional work of any length. However, how this term came to be used to translate the Western concepts of ＂fiction＂ and ＂novel＂ is a question that remains to be fully explored. This paper focuses on Lu Xun＇s seminal work Zhongguo xiaoshuo shilue （A brief history of Chinese fiction; 1925） so as to investigate the ways in which the Western concept of fiction is built into Lu Xun＇s historicization of xiaoshuo. I argue that Lu Xun＇s articulation of xiaoshuo is distinguished by his emphasis on both the term＇s universality and its ＂Chinese-ness.＂

Paul Groussac’s Void:The French Writer and the Argentine Tradition

The French-Argentine Paul Groussac embodied a wide range of writerly functions and cultural-political positions within the Argentine cultural field between the 1880s and the 1920s:writer,playwright,chronicler,traveler,literary,art,and music critic,historian,educator,editor,and director of the National Library during 44 years.This essay considers his place in the history of Argentine literature looking at two of the many ways in which he inscribed himself in it The first takes up the production and reproduction of the ontological privilege of French identity as a form of legitimization for his public-and often polemic-interventions,through which he sought to establish scholarly-disciplinary practices,protocols,and conventions that would articulate an entire critical field around his own authority.The second proposes to think his alternatively weak and strong inscriptions in the literary tradition through his own narrative production:his fiction and dramaturgy,travelogues,and biographical sketches.In other words,this essay situates Groussac in an Argentine literary tradition(conceived as an organic and institutionally sanctioned textual corpus)he believed to have founded and established,a selfrepresentation that led Borges to say that Groussac saw himself as“a missionary of Voltaire among the mulattage.”

Avant-Garde Austalgia

The Australian avant-garck raises all the contradictions of avant-garde studies in the present time.Antipodal vanguards in the 20th and 21 st centuries would grapple with various aspects of Australian national history,being in various ways and times between East and West,the aligned and non-aligned,the political and geopolitical in poetics.The word"Australia,"from the Latin auster,contains meanings for"East."Most importantly,the Antipodal vanguard exposes the contradictions of Australia’s imperial-colonial past and the struggle to overcome it.In this essay,1 begin with the example of a"Dada"poem that comes from an Aboriginal rain dance,as well as the emergence of Dada poetics from the 1950s to the 1970s.Throughout I keep complexities of history and time at the forefront:what is the worth of a"marginal"national literary history of the avant-garde?What does the avant-garde mean outside Europe or the Euro-US?What can Australian Dadaism tell us about the future of avant-garde studies?Docs the avant-garde always lead to nostalgia,or"Austalgia,"a hearkening after the past,as much as a striving toward the future?