Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-13T00:59:44.699Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Empire of the Chinese Sign: The Question of Chinese Diasporic Imagination in Transnational Literary Production

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2008

Kuei-Fen Chiu
Get access

Abstract

This paper begins with an examination of the burgeoning interest in literatures in Chinese. It argues that studies in literatures in Chinese map out a terrain where complex negotiations and interventions for different purposes are carried out. As studies in literatures in Chinese often imply a shift from the nation-state paradigm to the transnational paradigm, which implicitly celebrates diasporic imagination as a counterforce to the power of the nation-state, this paper proposes to examine the intersection of Chinese Malaysian literature and Taiwan literature at two specific moments of transnational literary production—the late 1970s to the mid-1980s and the late 1990s to the present—so as to demonstrate the unstable meanings of the diaspora sign. It highlights the importance of historicization in investigating phenomena of transnational cultural production and the need to reincorporate the notion of “place” into our agenda in conducting cultural critiques. The paper ends with a critique of the global city as a methodological concept and argues for a place paradigm without privileging the global city as a metaphor for transnational space.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 67 , Issue 2 , May 2008 , pp. 593 - 620
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

List of References

Ang, Ien. 1998. “Can One Say No to Chineseness? Pushing the Limits of Diasporic Paradigm.” boundary 2 25 (3): 223–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ang, Ien. 2001. On Not Speaking Chinese: Living between Asia and the West. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Appardurai, Arjun. 1996. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Bhabha, Homi K. 1990. “DissemiNation: Time, Narration, and the Margins of the Modern Nation.” In Nation and Narration, ed. Bhabha, Homi K., 291–322. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bolt, Paul J. 2000. China and Southeast Asia's Ethnic Chinese: State and Diaspora in Contemporary Asia. Westport, Conn.: Praeger.Google Scholar
Brown, Melissa J. 2004. Is Taiwan Chinese? The Impact of Culture, Power, and Migration on Changing Identities. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Cartier, Carolyn. 2003. “Diaspora and Social Restructuring in Postcolonial Malaysia.” In The Chinese Diaspora: Space, Place, Mobility, and Identity, ed. Ma, Lawrence J. C. and Cartier, Carolyn, 69–96. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Chang, Sung-sheng Yvonne. 1993. Modernism and the Nativist Resistance: Contemporary Chinese Fiction from Taiwan. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Chiu, Kuei-fen 邱貴芬. 2003. “Xunzhao ‘Taiwanxing’: quanqiuhua shidai xiangtu xiangxiang de jijin zhengzhi yiyi” 尋找「台灣性」：全球化時代「 土想像的基進政治意義 [In search of “Taiwaneseness”: Radical political implications of nativist imagination in the age of globalization]. Chung Wai Literary Monthly 中外文學 32 (4): 45–65.Google Scholar
Chiu, Kuei-fen 邱貴芬. 2006. “Yu Ng Kim-chew tan wenxueshi shuxie te baoli wenti” 與黃錦樹談文學史書寫的暴力問題 [A response to Ng Kim-chew's essay on the violence of literary history writing]. Router: A Journal of Cultural Studies, no. 2: 280–91.Google Scholar
Fah-hing 莊華興., Chong 2004. “Narrating National Allegory: Tension between Chinese Malaysian Literature and Malaysian Literature” 「 述國家寓言：馬華文學與馬來文學的頡頏與定位. In Equatorial Echoes: A Malaysian Chinese Literature Reader (II) 赤道回聲：馬華文學讀本 II, ed. Da-wei 陳大為, Chen et al. , 75–93. Taipei: Wan Juan Lou 萬卷樓.Google Scholar
Fah-hing 莊華興, Chong. 2006. “Miaoshu, xiangxiang yu fanyi zhutixing: Mahua wenxue lilun piping anli” 描述、想像與翻譯主體性: 馬華文學理論批評案例 [Description, imagination, and trans-planting subjectivity: A case of Mahua literary critical theory]. Chung Wai Literary Monthly 中外文學 34 (10): 43–60.Google Scholar
Chow, Rey. 1993. Writing Diaspora: Tactics of Intervention in Contemporary Cultural Studies. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Chow, Rey. 1995. Primitive Passions: Visuality, Sexuality, Ethnography, and Contemporary Chinese Cinema. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Clifford, James. 1997. Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Dirlik, Arif. 2001a. “Asians on the Rim: Transnational Capital and Local Community in the Making of Contemporary Asian America.” Places and Politics in an Age of Globalization, ed. Prazniak, Roxann and Dirlik, Arif, 73–99. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Dirlik, Arif. 2001b. “Place-Based Imagination: Globalism and the Politics of Place.” In Places and Politics in an Age of Globalization, ed. Prazniak, Roxann and Dirlik, Arif, 15–52. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Dirlik, Arif. 2002. “Literature/Identity: Transnationalism, Narrative and Representation.” Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies 24 (3): 209–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dirlik, Arif, and Roxann, Prazniak. 2001. “Introduction: Cultural Identity and the Politics of Place.” In Places and Politics in an Age of Globalization, ed. Prazniak, Roxann and Dirlik, Arif, 3–14. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Freud, Sigmund. 1957. “Mourning and Melancholia.” In The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, vol. XIV (1914–1916), trans. Strachey, James, 222–58. London: Hogarth Press.Google Scholar
A-chin, Hsiau. 2000. Contemporary Taiwanese Cultural Nationalism. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Huang, De-shi 黃得時. 1996. “Taiwan wenxueshi xushuo” 台灣文學史序說 [Preface to Taiwan Literary History]. In Taiwan wenxueji: riwen zuopin xuanji 台灣文學集：日文作品選集, ed. and trans. Shi-tao, Ye, 1–17. Gaoxiong: Chunhui 春暉. [Originally published in Japanese in 1943]Google Scholar
Klein, Christina. 2004. “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: A Diasporic Reading.” Cinema Journal 43 (4): 18–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lash, Scott, and Urry, John. 1994. Economies of Signs and Space. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Xiaofeng, Li, and Fengsong, Liu 李筱峰、劉峰松. 1994. Taiwan lishi Yuelan 台灣歷史閱覽 [An overview of Taiwan history]. Taipei: Zili Wanbao 自立「報出版.Google Scholar
Yong-ping, Li 李永平. 1986. Jiling chunqiu 吉陵春秋 [Chronicle of Chi-ling]. Taipei: Hong-fan 洪範.Google Scholar
Yong-ping, Li 李永平. 2003. “Wenzi yinyuan” 文字因緣 [All because of the Chinese word]. In Wandering: 1968–2002 : 1968–2002, by Yong-ping, Li, 27–47. Taipei: Mai Tian.Google Scholar
Ket, Lim Kien 林建國. 2001. “Fan jusuo langyou” 反居所浪遊 [Wandering: Against fixed home]. In You dao zhi dao/Dari Pulau Ke Pulau/Kebei 由島至島/Dari Pulau Ke Pulau/刻背 [From island to island/Dari Pulau Ke Pulau/Inscriptions on the back], ed. De-wei, Wang, 367–74. Taipei: Mai-tien 麥田.Google Scholar
Ket, Lim Kien 林建國. 2004. “Why Chinese Malaysian Literature?” In Equatorial Echoes: A Malaysian Chinese Literature Reader (II) 赤道回聲：馬華文學讀本 II, ed. Da-wei 陳大「, Chen et al. , 3–32. Taipei: Wan Juan Lou 萬卷樓.Google Scholar
Lupke, Christopher. 2001. “Wang Wenxing and the ‘Loss’ of China.” In Modern Chinese Literary and Cultural Studies in the Age of Theory: Reimagining a Field, ed. Chow, Rey, 127–58. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ma, Laurence J. C. 2003. “Space, Place, and Transnationalism in the Chinese Diaspora.” In The Chinese Diaspora: Space, Place, Mobility, and Identity, ed. Ma, Laurence J. C. and Cartier, Carolyn, 1–49. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Massey, Doreen. 1993. “Power-Geometry and a Progressive Sense of Place.” In Mapping the Futures: Local Cultures, Global Change, ed. Bird, Jon et al. , 59–69. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Massey, Doreen. 1994. Space, Place and Gender. Cambridge, U.K.: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Kim-chew, Ng 黃錦樹. 1997a. Wuan ming 烏暗瞑 [Dark nights: A collection of short stories]. Taipei: Jiuge 九歌.Google Scholar
Kim-chew, Ng 黃錦樹. 1997b. “Xu: feixie bu-ke de liyou” 序：非寫不可的理由 [Preface: The reason for writing]. In Wuan Ming 烏暗瞑 [Dark nights: A collection of short stories], by Kim-chew, Ng, 3–14. Taipei: Jiuge 九歌.Google Scholar
Kim-chew, Ng 黃錦樹. 1997c. “Yuhai” 魚骸 [The fish bone]. In Wuan Ming 烏暗瞑 [Dark nights: A collection of short stories], by Kim-chew, Ng, 251–78. Taipei: Jiuge 九歌.Google Scholar
Kim-chew, Ng 黃錦樹. 1998. Mahua wenxue yu zhongguoxing 馬華文學與中國性 [Chinese Malaysian literature and Chineseness]. Taipei: Yuanzun 元尊.Google Scholar
Kim-chew, Ng 黃錦樹. 2004. “Zhongguoxing yu biaoyanxing: lun mahua wenxue yu wenhua de xiangdu” 中國性與表演性：論馬華文學與文化的限度 [Chineseness and performativity: On the limits of Chinese Malaysian literature and culture]. In Equatorial Echoes: A Malaysian Chinese Literature Reader (II) 赤道回聲：馬華文學讀本 II, ed. Da-wei 陳大「等, Chen et al. , 39–74. Taipei: Wan Juan Lou 萬卷樓.Google Scholar
Kim-chew, Ng 黃錦樹. 2005a. “Zixu:Taiwan jingyan” 自序：台灣經驗 [Preface: Taiwan experience]” In Tu yu Huo 火與土 [Earth and fire], 13–17. Taipei: Mai-tien 麥田.Google Scholar
Kim-chew, Ng 黃錦樹. 2005b. “Yu Luo Yi-jun de duitan” 與駱以軍的對談 [A dialogue with Luo Yi-jun]. In Tu yu Huo 火與土 [Earth and fire], 311–23. Taipei: Mai-tien 麥田.Google Scholar
Kim-chew, Ng 黃錦樹. 2006. “Wuguoji (huawen) wenxue” 無國籍（華文）文學 [Literature in Chinese without national identity]. Router: A Journal of Cultural Studies, no. 2:211–52.Google Scholar
Onishi, Norimitsu. 2005. “Ugly Images of Asian Rivals Become Best Sellers in Japan.” New York Times, November 19. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/19/international/asia/19comics.html [accessed January 2, 2008].Google Scholar
Park, Jae-woo. 2005. “Current Issues and Research Trends in Taiwanese Literature Studies in Korea,” International Journal of Study on Modern Chinese Literature in East Asia 1:77–90.Google Scholar
Peng, Ruijin. 1991. Taiwan xinwenxue yundong sishi nien 台灣新文學運動 40 年 [Forty years of the Taiwan new literary movement]. Taipei: Zili wanbao 自立「 報.Google Scholar
Shan, Te-hsing. 2005. “Introduction to the Special Issue on Chinese-Language Literature in the United States.” Chung Wai Literary Monthly 中外文學 34 (4): 15–14.Google Scholar
Shih, Shu-mei. 2000. “Globalisation and Minoritisation: Ang Lee and the Politics of Flexibility.” New Formations 40:86–101.Google Scholar
Shih, Shu-mei. 2004. “Global Literature and the Technologies of Recognition.” PMLA 119 (1): 16–30.Google Scholar
Da-chuan, Sun 孫大川. 2003. “Yuanzhumin wenhua lishi yu xinling shijie de moxie” 原住民文化歷史與心靈世界的摹寫 [A portrayal of aboriginal culture, history, and their life-world]. In Taiwan Yuanzhumin hanyu wenxue xuanji: pinglun juan(shang) 台灣原住民漢語文學選集: 評論卷上 [Essays on Taiwan aboriginal literature in Chinese: I], ed. Da-chuan, Sun, 17–47. Taipei: Ink. [Originally published in a 1992 issue of Chung Wai Literary Monthly]Google Scholar
Tay, William 鄭樹森等 et al. 2000. “Wu Liu shi niendai Hong Kong wenxue xianxiang sanren tan” 五、六十年代香港文學現象三人談 [A forum on Hong Kong literature in the 1950s and 1960s]. Chung Wai Literary Monthly 中外文學 28 (10): 11–39.Google Scholar
Tong, Tee Kim 張錦忠. 2003. Nanyang Lunshu: Mahua wenxue yu wenhua shuxing 南洋論述：馬華文學與文化屬性 [Studying Southeast Asian Chinese: Essays on Chinese Malaysian literature and cultural identity]. Taipei: Mai-tien 麥田.Google Scholar
Tong, Tee Kim 張錦忠. 2004. “Wenhua huikui, lisan Taiwan yu luxing kuakuoxing: zaitai mahua wenxue te anli” 文化回歸、離散台灣與旅行跨國性: 「在台馬華文學」的案例 [Cultural return, diaspora, and traveling transnationalism: Locating Mahua literature in Taiwan]. Chung Wai Literary Monthly 中外文學 33 (7): 153–66.Google Scholar
Wei-ming, Tu. 1994. “Cultural China: The Periphery as the Center.” In The Living Tree: The Changing Meaning of Being Chinese Today, ed. Wei-ming, Tu, 1–34. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Walis, Norkan. 2003. “Taiwan yuanzhuming wenxue te quzhimin” 台灣原住民文學的去殖民 [The decolonization of Taiwan aboriginal literature]. In Taiwan yuanzhumin hanyu wenxue xuanji: pintlunjuan 台灣原住民漢語文學選集:評論卷（上） [Essays on Taiwan aboriginal literature in Chinese: I], ed. Da-chuan, Sun. 127–47. Taipei: Ink. [Originally presented at a 1998 conference on Taiwan aboriginal literature]Google Scholar
Chih-ming, Wang 王智明. 2005. “Mei Hua zhi jien: qianshanwai shuichangliu li de wenhua kuayue yu jianji xiangxian” 「美」「華」之間：《千山外水長流》裡的文化跨越與間際想像 [Between the American and the Chinese: Cultural crossings and interstitial imagination in Nieh Hua-ling's Thousand Mountains Away, A River Flows]. Chung Wai Literary Monthly 中外文學 34 (4): 111–41.Google Scholar
De-wei, Wang 王德威. 1993. Xiaoshuo Zhong kuo 小說中國 [Fiction China]. Taipei: Mai-tien 麥田.Google Scholar
De-wei, Wang 王德威. 1998. Ruhe xiandai zenyang wenxue 如何現代「 怎樣文學 [The making of the modern, the making of a literature: New perspectives on nineteenth- and twentieth-century Chinese fiction]. Taipei: Mai-tien 麥田.Google Scholar
De-wei, Wang 王德威. 2001. “Hua haizi Huang Jinshu: Huang Jingshu te Mahua lunshu yu xushu” 壞孩子黃錦樹:黃錦樹的馬華論述與「 述 [Bad boy Ng Kim-chew: Ng Kim-chew's Chinese Malaysian discourse and narrative]. Preface to You dao zhi dao/Dari Pulau Ke Pulau/Kebei 由島至島/Dari Pulau Ke Pulau/刻背 [From island to island/Dari Pulau Ke Pulau/Inscriptions on the back], by Kim-chew, Ng, 11–35. Taipei: Mai-tien 麥田.Google Scholar
De-wei, Wang 王德威. 2003. “Xu: Yuanxiang xiangxiang, langzi wenxue” 序：原「 想像，浪子文學 [Preface: Homeland imaginary and diaspora literature]. In Ti-to : 1968–2002, by Yong-ping, Li, 11–25. Taipei: Mai-tien 麥田.Google Scholar
Zhen-ho, Wang. 1975. “Jiazhuan yi niuche” 嫁妝一牛車 [An oxcart for dowry]. In Jiazhuan yi niuche: A Collection of Short Stories 嫁妝一牛車, 71–98. Taipei: Yuanjing 遠景. [Originally published in 1967 in Wenxue jikang 文學季刊 (Literature: A quarterly journal)]Google Scholar
Zhen-ho, Wang. 1984. 玫瑰玫瑰我愛「 [Rose Rose I love you]. Taipei: Yuanjing 遠景.Google Scholar
Williams, Jack F. 2003. “Who Are the Taiwanese? Taiwan in the Chinese Diaspora.” In The Chinese Diaspora: Space, Place, Mobility, and Identity, ed. Ma, Lawrence J. C. and Cartier, Carolyn, 163–89. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Wong, Yoon Wah. 2002. Post-Colonial Chinese Literatures in Singapore and Malaysia. River Edge, NJ: Global Publishing.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wu, David Yen-ho. 1994. “The Construction of Chinese and Non-Chinese Identities.” In The Living Tree: The Changing Meaning of Being Chinese Today, ed. Tu, Wei-ming, 148–66. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Xiang Yang, 向陽. 2004. “Minzu xiangxiang yu dazhong luxian de jiaogui: 1930niandai Taiwan huawen lunzheng yu taiyu wenxue yundong” 民族想像與大眾路線的交軌：一九三0年代台灣話文論爭與台語文學運動 [The intersection of national imagination and mass movement: The debate on Taiwanese language in the 1930s and Taiwanese literature movement]. In Taiwan xinwenxue fazhan zhongda shijian lunwenji 台灣新文學發展重大事件論文集 [Essays on key issues in the development of Taiwan new literature], 21–47. Tainan: National Taiwan Literature Museum.Google Scholar
Yang, Zhao 楊照. 1995. Wenxue shehui yu lishi xiangxiang: zhanhou wenxueshi sanlun 文學、社會與歷史想像：戰後文學史散論 [Literature, society, and historical imagination: Essays on postwar Taiwan literature]. Taipei: Lian-he wen-xue.Google Scholar
Shi-tao, Ye. 1987. Taiwan wenxue shigang 台灣文學史綱 [An outline of the history of Taiwan literature]. Gaoxiong 高雄: Wenxuejie 文學界.Google Scholar
Yip, June. 2004. Envisioning Taiwan: Fiction, Cinema, and the Nation in the Cultural Imaginary. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Yoshimoto, Mitsuhiro. 2003. “Hollywood, Americanism and the Imperial Screen: Geopolitics of Image and Discourse after the End of the Cold War.” Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 4 (1): 451–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar