The Making of Chinese-Sinophone Literatures as World Literature

In The Making of Chinese-Sinophone Literatures as World Literature, Kuei-fen Chiu and Yingjin Zhang aim to bridge the distance between the scholarship of world literature and that of Chinese and Sinophone literary studies. This edited volume advances research on world literature by bringing in new developments in Chinese/Sinophone literatures and adds a much-needed new global perspective on Chinese literary studies beyond the traditional national literature paradigm and its recent critique by Sinophone studies. In addition to a critical mapping of the domains of world literature, Sinophone literature, and world literature in Chinese to delineate the nuanced differences of these three disciplines, the book addresses the issues of translation, genre, and the impact of media and technology on our understanding of “literature” and “literary prestige.” It also provides critical studies of the complicated ways in which Chinese and Sinophone literatures are translated, received, and reinvested across various genres and media, and thus circulate as world literature. The issues taken up by the contributors to this volume promise fruitful polemical interventions in the studies of world literature from the vantage point of Chinese and Sinophone literatures.

Kuei-fen Chiu is chair professor of Taiwan literature and transnational cultural studies at National Chung Hsing University in Taiwan. She is the co-author of New Chinese-Language Documentaries: Ethics, Subject and Place (2015) and co-editor of Taiwan Cinema, International Reception, and Social Change (2017). Yingjin Zhang is distinguished professor of comparative literature at University of California, San Diego, as well as visiting chair professor of humanities at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China. He is the author of Cinema, Space, and Polylocality in a Globalizing China (2010) and co-editor of Locating Taiwan Cinema in the Twenty-First Century (2020).