＂Symptom of an Era＂： Dung Kai-Cheung＇s Histories of Time

This essay uses the notion of a symptom to examine the ways in which temporality is deployed in Hong Kong author Dung Kai-Cheung＇s 2007 novel, Histories o^Time. In particular, the essay follows Dung＇s own lead, in Histories of Time, and considers the peculiar temporality implicit in the concept of figuration in Biblical hermeneutics, wherein the ＂figure＂ mediates between the two distinct--yet structurally related--temporalities of the Old and the New Testaments： the ＂prefiguration＂ of the Old Testament and the ＂fulfillment of figuration＂ of the New Testament. I propose that a literary ＂figure,＂ in Dung＇s work, similarly mediates between the different temporal planes within his novel, while at the same time mediating between the fictional space of the novel and the historical era within which the work is positioned. Just as a symptom is simultaneously a function of--but also structurally external to--the underlying condition that it signifies, this sort of literary figure may similarly be seen as a function of--but simultaneously external to--the historical era to which it corresponds. This sort of literary figure, accordingly, marks a point of rupture within the temporality of the novel and its corresponding era, while at the same time providing the ground on which that temporal continuum is established in the first place.

Mythorealism and Enchanted Time： Yan Lianke＇s Explosion Chronicles

In The Explosion Chronicles （Zhalie zhi 炸裂志）, Yan Lianke combines ancient and contemporary practices of constructing and destructing, building and burning, in a literary style he calls mythorealism. The fictional chronicles relay a history of development written in the modem language of growth, documenting the development of a community called Explosion, which subsumes a discussion of economic growth within a theme of twisted temporality. This article uses The Explosion Chroniclesto interrogate the temporal assumptions inherent in contemporary discourses of economic development in China. At the heart of my analysis of these tropes is a critique of the ideological function of linear time. Time can be arrested in economic growth, becoming an interface that activates intersubjective gazes before narratives mature.

Ghost Marriage in Twentieth-Century Chinese Literature： Between the Past and the Future

This article examines the adoption of ghost marriage （冥婚） as a literary theme in twentieth-century Chinese literature, arguing that this theme reflects a set of changes in perceptions of temporality from the premodern to the modern period. As a traditional ritual of holding marriage for the dead, ghost marriage embodies premodern views of time and space wherein the living and the dead are perceived as coexisting in parallel spaces, and the boundary of life and death is seen as transcendable through the extension of kinship. In this way, the dead are kept within the family, maintaining the warmth of familial relationships that transcend being and non-being. Modern authors, promoting a linear view of time, have taken up ghost marriage as an anchoring point of nostalgia for an unrecoverable ethics-based society. For instance, Yan Lianke＇s 阎连科 1994 novella Searching for the Land （寻找土地） announces the utter corruption--and therefore the death--of ethics-based society, suggesting that the only alternative is to confront the future as a road to hope rather than indulge in an illusion of the past. Through an analysis of Yan＇s novella, this essay discusses how the theme of ghost marriage fits into the broader literary context of the early 1990s while also anticipating some of the distinctive elements ofYan Lianke＇s subsequent novels.