Writing Spaces：Travel,Global Cities and Landscapes

本書篩選自2010年與2011年國立中山大學國際研討會發表的論文及會後之徵稿。本書分成三個部份：第一部分的主題與旅遊文學相關，收錄耶魯大學講座教授Claude Rawson在2011年國際研討會之主題演講，其中討論殖民帝國的剝削與征服以及種族屠殺的議題；其他論文作者包括Chen Chia Hwan、Lee Melisse、Borim Dario、Rajendra Chetty、Larkosh Christopher、Yokota- Murakami、Kocak Betul Atesci、Kim Won Chung、Mi Jia Yan、Shao Yu Chuan、Barros- Grela Eduardo、Bobadilla- Perez Maria、 第二部份與城市書寫有關，包涵城市美學、帝國與殖民的議題；第三部分以討論地景與空間為主題，包涵台灣當代文學中被遺忘的景觀、海角的空間意象與家在現代中國文學的意義。
 
This book, Writing Spaces: Travel, Global Cities and Landscapes, consists of three sections. The first section consists of three papers on travel literature. Claude Rawson’s essay, “Gulliver, Travel and Empire,” a keynote speech for 2011 International Conference held by the Center for the Humanities at National Sun Yat-sen University, discusses Gulliver’s Travels as “a central document of European intellectual history, touching the most important debates about colonial exploration, conquest, and genocide” (1). Chia-Huan Chen explores the images of the Chinese as the Other in John Bell and George Anson, while Melissa Lee discusses the languages of hospitality found in Early Modern captivity narratives and how questions of acculturation and belonging. The second section focuses on the “Other” city. Borim’s paper deals with aesthetics of architecture; Rajendra’s paper represents South African Indian writings. Larkosh, by exploring a number of divergent narratives of colonization, displacement, imperial expansion and national consolidation, finds San Francisco as Urban “Other”. Yokota-Murakam traces the reason why Osaka has become a city of carnivalesque hybridity.
The section of Spaces and Landscape Writing approaches landscapes through different perspectives. Shao finds in contemporary Taiwan literature topos of forgotten landscapes, while Barros-Grela and Bobadilla-Perez discuss dystopian scenarios. Kocak explores the meaning of space in George Elliott Clarke’s novel George & Rue via Michel Foucault’s notion of heterotopia. Kim brings up the meanings of spaces in the cape as well as the sea. Mi’s paper on homescape by discussing “jia” compares and contrasts spatial deterritorialization and cultural imagination of a new home in modern Chinese literature. Spatial imagination and travel narratives discussed in the papers mentioned above not only highlight geographical experience of the people but also question the relationship between the self and the other.