The page numbers that we've read I wrote it down in the file. There are some suggestions about the final essay topic, please choose the third one.

EALC-2772: Modern Chinese Literature in Translation Final Essay Topic Suggestions

1. How are the themes of sex, nationalism, and racism interconnected in Yu Dafu’s (1896-1945) “Sinking” (1921)? Explain.

2. Look at a film adaptation of any of the readings assigned so far, for instance, the

1933 film adaptation of Mao Dun’s “Spring Silkworms,” Spring Silkworms, or the 1987 adaptation of “Sinking,” 郁达夫传奇 (The Story of Yu Dafu). What do the adaptations reveal about the original material, and the target audience. How does the film adaptation interpret the original. Unfortunately, many of these film adaptations are not available with English subtitles.

3. Ling Shuhua’s (1900-1990), “The Night of the Mid-Autumn Festival,” Ye

Shaojun’s (1894-1988) “A Posthumous Son,” Shen Congwen’s (1902-1988) “Xiaoxiao,” Ding Ling’s (1904-1986) “When I was in Xia Village” and Xiao Hong’s (1911-1942) “Hands,” each represent the plight of women. Looking at one character from the above stories, or comparing two characters, how do women characters represent traditional culture and the need for reform.

4. Read Ding Ling’s “When I was in Xia Village” against Mao Zedong’s 1942 “Mao’s

Talks at Yan’an (Yenan) Forum on Art and Literature.” After hearing Mao’s talks in Yan’an, how might Ding Ling have criticized her story?

5. In his 1979, “Remembering Xiao Shan,” we learn that Ba Jin’s Collected Works

of Ba Jin, containing his pre-1949 writing had been classified as “a great anti- party, antisocialist poison weed.” Read Ba Jin’s 1931, “Dog” against Mao Zedong’s 1942 “Mao’s Talks at Yen’an (Yenan) Forum on Art and Literature.” Based on these requirements and restrictions on art and literature, what about “Dog” makes this story “a great anti-party, antisocialist poison weed”?

6. Screen the entirety of Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1972 Chung Kuo, Cina. Reading

the film critically, explore the possible reasoning behind it being banned in China until 2004. What is objectionable about the film’s documentation of China in 1972?

7. Compare the depiction of the Cultural Revolution in Jiang Wen’s 1994 In the

Heat of the Sun with the depictions of the period from Ba Jin’s “Remembering Xiao Shan” and/or Wen Jieruo’s “Living Hell.” How does the film question and undermine the accuracy of memory? How does the film romanticize the period?

8. Examine depictions of urban and rural spaces across multiple texts we’ve read

this term. How do these depictions document larger social divisions?

9. How does literature written after the Cultural Revolution attempt to reconstruct polarized representations of femininity and masculinity?

10. Compare works of the 30s and 40s written in a realist mode with the

experimental writing of the 80s. How would you characterize the political aims underlying each style?

11. Examine representations of tradition and the past in the texts we’ve read this

term. How do these depictions reflect an effort to build a new China, or to reconcile the past with the present? To what extend do narratives depict a China that has shed its past, and to what extend do they depict a China that is a culmination of its past?

12. What role does gender play in the Chinese nationalism? Draw examples from

literature of the turn of the century, the May Fourth period, the War of Resistance, and the Post-Mao Era.