ACLA 2006 Annual Meeting: The Human and Its Others

In the turbulent 20th century, most of East Asian countries have been radically changed or affected by a series of revolutions: nationalist revolutions for independence, “proletariat” revolutions of class struggle, and various types of cultural, social, and artistic revolutions that aim to modernize social customs, arts and languages. “Revolution” was once such a popular concept that different classes, social movements, interest groups, parties, schools, etc. all competed with each other for the title of “revolutionary.” Revolution hence becomes an open field where different discourses struggle with each other, and it finds others not only among self-conscious conservatives, but also “revolutionaries” themselves. This session aims to discuss the influence of revolution in East Asian countries — both past and present. Possible topics are: What are the different interpretations of “revolution”? What are the permutations of the concept of revolution in today’s world? To what ends is the term revolution used/misused?; How do revolutionary discourses (the democratic idea of the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, etc.) travel to East Asia and among Asian countries? How do the local people receive and revise these discourses?; How do revolutionary theories interpret the nature and function of art? How does revolution affect the production, circulation and consumption of artistic works? How is revolution itself presented in art?

Friday, March 24

Lianying Shan, Princeton University
“Revolution as the Exotic Other— Yokomitsu Riichi’s Shanhai”
Yoshihiro Yasuhara, Florida State University
“Permanent Revolution as an Alternative to Japanese Modernity: Ishikawa Jun’s Idea of Kakumei”
Lanjun Xu, Princeton University
“Revolution and Narrative Politics in the 1940s: Huang Guliu’s Orphan Story on Hong Kong of the Forties”
Enhua Zhang, Columbia University
“The Will to Land, The Will to Revolution: Chinese Land Reform in Political and Literary Manifestations”

Saturday, March 25

Jing Tsu, Rutgers University
“Evolving and Revolving: Human, Humanism, and Revolution in China, 1895-1928”
Anne Xu, Rutgers University
“The Individual vs. the Collective: Revolution’s Impasse?”
Xin Ning, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
“Apocalypse or Catastrophe?：Case Studies of Political Radicalism and Its Other in Chinese Literature during Anti-Japanese War Era”
Liang Luo, Harvard University
“The Opera Question in Modern Chinese Revolution”

Sunday, March 26

Jie Chen, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
“The Silence of the Liberated Other—The Serfs: A Story of Integration, Identification and Estrangement”
Chao-Mei Tu, Purdue University
“The Cultural Revolution in Negotiation”
Tim Lee, University of California, Los Angeles
“Ideology and Individual Agency in Yu Hua’s Chronicles of a Blood Merchant”
Cong Yin, Purdue University
“The Presentation of Chinese Cultural Revolution in the Novel and Movie To Live”