Chinese Literature Podcast
Jul. 15th, 2021 11:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
x_losI'm really ambivalent about this podcast. Where it's informative, it's hugely so. I am constantly impressed by their conversational assurance. Specialising in this form of literature has given them a good, broad knowledge base. This is enviable, I do not have it myself! But for me, the programme has two huge baked-in issues:
1. Politics: God, grant me the brass balls of American Sinologist bois recording in the middle of the Trump coup, talking about how Beijing is authoritarian and has no ideological legitimacy. That is not a contention I wanna hear if you’re de facto assuming that authoritarianism and ideological incoherence are not American problems as well? ‘Their government is pure nationalism.’ Ok and? Ours? Isn't?
I’m not even a tankie, this is just weird?? I’m sorry, if you're going to broach this vague topic, then you do have to contend with the materialist question of whether the regime has provided real economic succour to the proletariat over the past century--whether it has succeeded in those terms. You don’t have to like all the CCP's decisions, but you can’t wholesale dismiss the idea that there was ever any meaningful good-faith engagement with and benefit from communism? This is such a hardline ideological argument, tossed off in the most naturalised way possible without the people espousing it even bothering to make said argument, or identify any external or material counterpoint. Just ‘I saw a bossy COVID propaganda poster; I’ve come to Conclusions’. What is in the water in US universities? This whole thing is embarrassing to me, as an academic. I feel shanda fur die goyim.
If I were going to make any pronouncement about whether the British state has succeeded in the past 100 years, I’d have to begin by carefully defining terms, and then engage with comparison points and data. This is just so glib? They recorded this one episode in France during the yellow jacket protests and cwyyyed about the dodgy poor areas of Paris where it’s scary!! I think the French term for these experiences is 'les little bitches abroad'.
2. Analytic rigour: Speaking of a shameful lack of rigour, when it comes to analysis time these boys are out to lunch. Their takes are so mediocre sometimes? They wanna have some big DISCUSSION of whether the Ballad of Mulan 'counts' as feminist. The question is dumb, and the whole framework is weak. Then they're talking about some major piece of political satire that's pornographic, and whiiiiiiining about it being porn and constantly distancing themselves from the material. Are you 14? It's Ming Dynasty content, you cannot feel this implicated. Their entire review of this arguably? genderfluid story regarding castration didn't mention eunuchs at all as a comparative point. I was like... are you new. here?
Also, if you're having a big discussion of 'whether the Ballad of Mulan is feminist' and this potentially dicey Ming porn: call a woman. You truly can just ask a femme colleague to weigh in, you don't need to invent this wheel. Have you got? a trans friend? because that could really make this whole reading experience both richer and easier!! I don't get it, like. How do you avoid--70% of people I know are women, 80% of people I know are queer, 40% some kind of transperson, with some overlaps therein--HOw do you avoid? having ppl to call?
It does feel like their training was balanced towards information rather than analysis (and like a lot of their Chinese contacts are the equivalent of White Russians with vested interest in not taking a broad view of political issues), and that's been lastingly detrimental. Ideally their scholarship wouldn't just be 'x for white people', but 'competitive' with mainland literature scholarship, offering fresh insights due to their different perspectives. And I just don't see how that can be the case, from these offerings?
Their content, across the platforms and even on their own site, is also not very well-organised, which can be frustrating. The episodes' titles aren't even necessarily consistent.
Their work is immensely valuable as an introduction to new material, but in the aforementioned capacities, I trust it not at all.
What I've listened to so far (14 out of 100):
Three Character Classic
China’s Covid-19 Three Character Classic Propaganda
Two episodes on the san zi jing, tracking some moments in the historical arc of 'Dick and Jane: Confucian Philosophy for Babies'.
Yu Dafu’s Sinking
About a somewhat unexpected 1920s novella, wherein a guy can't get maintain an errection because China's geopolitical position is unsatisfying. Yes.
So basically, I would like to put an end, to Literature. I think it's a bad idea, taken too far.
Buddhist Rescues Mom from Hell
About an interesting 'Buddhists can be filial too!' propaganda epic I'd heard of before, but not really had context for.
Zhuangzi’s Butterfly
Big Daoist classic beat.
Wait, Wait…Where’s Eddie Murphy?: The REAL Story of Mulan
On the ballad.
The Ugly Stone: A Conversation with Nick Stember
On a contemporary Chinese writer.
19 Ways of Looking at Wang Wei
Did you know Octavio Paz and another dude wrote a whole short book on 19 translations of the Tang poem Deer Park&what they DO? Amazing?
Also the guys point out—and this is obvious but I NEVER saw it—that the reason Edwardian and earlier translators render stuff as sonnets is bc their readers were simply more poetry literate than us in most cases and thus accustomed to the shape of poetic forms so actually it’s like—freer ‘authentic’ translation is now more appreciable bc we LOST our own tradition to such a degree. It’s not just that we’re Cooler Now!! Honestly, that's such an interesting shake-up of my snobbery about the Edwardian translation and its aims.
Professor Van Norden’s Classical Chinese for Everyone
This seems like a really interesting book, aimed at teaching people who don't necessarily already speak contemporary Chinese.
Ancient Chinese Porn Literature
'this giant penis is symbolic of his lack of status, in some ways' thanks guys.
Liang Qichao
Chinese Modernism.
Tao Yuanming’s Return to the Fields and Gardens
On the pastoral. 'A humble thatched cabin, with 8-9 rooms--' oh my god, fuck off.
There Can Be Only One: The Biography of Xiang Yu
This actually made me want to read Records of the Grand Historian, by Sima Qian.
'How I Mutilated a Trannie, then Fell in Love'
A somewhat awkward, if decently well-meaning, treatment of a Pu Songling short story.
1. Politics: God, grant me the brass balls of American Sinologist bois recording in the middle of the Trump coup, talking about how Beijing is authoritarian and has no ideological legitimacy. That is not a contention I wanna hear if you’re de facto assuming that authoritarianism and ideological incoherence are not American problems as well? ‘Their government is pure nationalism.’ Ok and? Ours? Isn't?
I’m not even a tankie, this is just weird?? I’m sorry, if you're going to broach this vague topic, then you do have to contend with the materialist question of whether the regime has provided real economic succour to the proletariat over the past century--whether it has succeeded in those terms. You don’t have to like all the CCP's decisions, but you can’t wholesale dismiss the idea that there was ever any meaningful good-faith engagement with and benefit from communism? This is such a hardline ideological argument, tossed off in the most naturalised way possible without the people espousing it even bothering to make said argument, or identify any external or material counterpoint. Just ‘I saw a bossy COVID propaganda poster; I’ve come to Conclusions’. What is in the water in US universities? This whole thing is embarrassing to me, as an academic. I feel shanda fur die goyim.
If I were going to make any pronouncement about whether the British state has succeeded in the past 100 years, I’d have to begin by carefully defining terms, and then engage with comparison points and data. This is just so glib? They recorded this one episode in France during the yellow jacket protests and cwyyyed about the dodgy poor areas of Paris where it’s scary!! I think the French term for these experiences is 'les little bitches abroad'.
2. Analytic rigour: Speaking of a shameful lack of rigour, when it comes to analysis time these boys are out to lunch. Their takes are so mediocre sometimes? They wanna have some big DISCUSSION of whether the Ballad of Mulan 'counts' as feminist. The question is dumb, and the whole framework is weak. Then they're talking about some major piece of political satire that's pornographic, and whiiiiiiining about it being porn and constantly distancing themselves from the material. Are you 14? It's Ming Dynasty content, you cannot feel this implicated. Their entire review of this arguably? genderfluid story regarding castration didn't mention eunuchs at all as a comparative point. I was like... are you new. here?
Also, if you're having a big discussion of 'whether the Ballad of Mulan is feminist' and this potentially dicey Ming porn: call a woman. You truly can just ask a femme colleague to weigh in, you don't need to invent this wheel. Have you got? a trans friend? because that could really make this whole reading experience both richer and easier!! I don't get it, like. How do you avoid--70% of people I know are women, 80% of people I know are queer, 40% some kind of transperson, with some overlaps therein--HOw do you avoid? having ppl to call?
It does feel like their training was balanced towards information rather than analysis (and like a lot of their Chinese contacts are the equivalent of White Russians with vested interest in not taking a broad view of political issues), and that's been lastingly detrimental. Ideally their scholarship wouldn't just be 'x for white people', but 'competitive' with mainland literature scholarship, offering fresh insights due to their different perspectives. And I just don't see how that can be the case, from these offerings?
Their content, across the platforms and even on their own site, is also not very well-organised, which can be frustrating. The episodes' titles aren't even necessarily consistent.
Their work is immensely valuable as an introduction to new material, but in the aforementioned capacities, I trust it not at all.
What I've listened to so far (14 out of 100):
Three Character Classic
China’s Covid-19 Three Character Classic Propaganda
Two episodes on the san zi jing, tracking some moments in the historical arc of 'Dick and Jane: Confucian Philosophy for Babies'.
Yu Dafu’s Sinking
About a somewhat unexpected 1920s novella, wherein a guy can't get maintain an errection because China's geopolitical position is unsatisfying. Yes.
So basically, I would like to put an end, to Literature. I think it's a bad idea, taken too far.
Buddhist Rescues Mom from Hell
About an interesting 'Buddhists can be filial too!' propaganda epic I'd heard of before, but not really had context for.
Zhuangzi’s Butterfly
Big Daoist classic beat.
Wait, Wait…Where’s Eddie Murphy?: The REAL Story of Mulan
On the ballad.
The Ugly Stone: A Conversation with Nick Stember
On a contemporary Chinese writer.
19 Ways of Looking at Wang Wei
Did you know Octavio Paz and another dude wrote a whole short book on 19 translations of the Tang poem Deer Park&what they DO? Amazing?
Also the guys point out—and this is obvious but I NEVER saw it—that the reason Edwardian and earlier translators render stuff as sonnets is bc their readers were simply more poetry literate than us in most cases and thus accustomed to the shape of poetic forms so actually it’s like—freer ‘authentic’ translation is now more appreciable bc we LOST our own tradition to such a degree. It’s not just that we’re Cooler Now!! Honestly, that's such an interesting shake-up of my snobbery about the Edwardian translation and its aims.
Professor Van Norden’s Classical Chinese for Everyone
This seems like a really interesting book, aimed at teaching people who don't necessarily already speak contemporary Chinese.
Ancient Chinese Porn Literature
'this giant penis is symbolic of his lack of status, in some ways' thanks guys.
Liang Qichao
Chinese Modernism.
Tao Yuanming’s Return to the Fields and Gardens
On the pastoral. 'A humble thatched cabin, with 8-9 rooms--' oh my god, fuck off.
There Can Be Only One: The Biography of Xiang Yu
This actually made me want to read Records of the Grand Historian, by Sima Qian.
'How I Mutilated a Trannie, then Fell in Love'
A somewhat awkward, if decently well-meaning, treatment of a Pu Songling short story.
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