Eileen Chang as “Global Modernist” and the Politics of World Literature

Description

With the “global turn” in literary studies, scholars have sought to recover writers hitherto unknown to Euro-American audiences. One example is Eileen Chang, now increasingly recognized as part of the global modernist canon. Yet despite her well-known bilingual writing practice, efforts to reclaim a place for Chang in World Literature tend to focus only on her Chinese works. This talk offers a re-evaluation of the Anglophone Eileen Chang, drawing on world system theories to recontextualize her post-1949 career in Hong Kong and the United States. The strange case of Eileen Chang, I argue, reflects an urgent need for new critical paradigms that take into account the survival strategies of resistance and adaptation on the part of marginalized writers.

Period	9 Oct 2023
Event title	Arts Faculty Research Seminar Series
Event type	Seminar
Organiser	FACULTY OF ARTS