Sinologie

Die Vorträge finden am 06.05.2024 und am 08.05.2024 ab 18 Uhr am Campus Westend statt und sind offen für alle Interessierten. Eine vorherige Anmeldung ist nicht notwendig. Die Vorträge sind auf englisch.

Wilhelm Lectures 2024
Prof. David Der-wei Wang (Harvard University)

Rescuing Literature from the Nation

Literature Can Think: Debating Utopia in Modern China

Monday, 06.05.2024, 18-20:00

Location: CAS 1.812 (The lecture will be followed by a small reception.)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://uni-frankfurt.zoom-x.de/j/66746636838?pwd=aDErcENjcTduVmNsUDVNUkpocERHdz09
Meeting ID: 667 4663 6838
Passcode: 665741

Utopia, as a literary genre, a type of political thought, and a method of speculative inquiry, was
introduced to China in the late Qing era. Through modern times, multiple utopian projects were
conceived, debated, and contested by writers, thinkers, and political activists, to the point where
utopia morphed into dystopia and literature became politics. This lecture seeks to rethink the
dynamics of modern Chinese utopia as manifested in forms from fiction to conceptual
treatises and political manifestos. The cases discussed will include Lu Xun, Shen Congwen,
Zhang Jingsheng, and Mao Zedong.

The Monster That Is Fiction: The Politics of “Storytelling” in Contemporary China
Wednesday, 08.05.2024, 18-20:00,
Location: IG 1.314 (Eisenhower Raum)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://uni-frankfurt.zoom-x.de/j/63253391612?pwd=UUNYSGo5d1pEUW1Qb2U4d3lIUGswZz09
Meeting ID: 632 5339 1612
Passcode: 248006

This lecture invokes fiction as one of the most polemical ways to engage with Chinese
(post)modernity. It takes as its point of departure President Xi Jinping’s 2013 call to “tell the
good China story,” not only explicating the “fictional turn” of contemporary Chinese cultural
politics vis à vis the world, but also tracing its genealogy to early modern times. Inspired by
Hannah Arendt’s notion of “the fearful imagination,” the lecture tries to answer the question:
Why does fiction and storytelling matter in China and the rest of the world, not only through the
modern period but also in the contemporary era?

Poster Richard Wilhelm Lecture 2024

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