Study On Eileen Chang In North America(1961-2021)

Studies on Eileen Chang in North America are synchronized with those on modern Chinese literature in North America,both of which are marked by A History of Modern Chinese Fiction published by Hsia,C.T.in 1961.After it,Eileen Chang also gradually stepped into the academic research in North America and shared the trend and theoretical change of the studies on modern Chinese literature in North America.But generally speaking,centralized thematic investigations are still lacking.So far,there is only one academic monograph on Eileen Chang by Nicole Huang,namely,Woman,War,Domesticity: Shanghai Literature and Popular Culture of the1940 s.Therefore,“Chang Studies” in North America are mainly found in journal papers,academic dissertations,and other comprehensive research works.Based on the above situation,this paper is divided into four chapters to discuss study on Eileen Chang in North America.The first chapter mainly sorts out the discussion of Eileen Chang in literature history monographs or quasi-literature history monographs in North America,and discusses and connects the literary figure of Eileen Chang in the history of Chinese literature,the history of modern Chinese literature,the history of modern East Asian literature,the history of Asian American literature,the history of translation literature and the history of world literature.Among them,the first and second sections focus on the writings of the history of Chinese literature and modern Chinese literature.While the third section is about the research judgment of the history of world literature,at the same time,it also collates the publication of Eileen Chang’s English works and English versions in the North American market,and analyzes the collection of North American literature anthology and the relevant curriculum of North American universities.In the process of clarifying the narration of literary history,it tries to present the theoretical turn and the preliminary academic inheritance of “Chang Studies” in North America.The second chapter concentrates on Chow Rey,David Der-Wei Wang,and Lee Leo Ou-fan,sorts out their research on narrative mode and lineage of “desolation aesthetics” in Eileen Chang’s works,and highlights the internal pursuit of modernity in this topic.Among them,Chow’s “detail” politics laid the important way of gender criticism in Chang Studies;David Wang promoted Eileen Chang as an important Chinese modern literary canon in the discussion of genealogy of “Chang School” and “Narratology of Repetition,Involution,and Derivation”;Leo Lee analyzed the intermediate state of time and space,confirmed Eileen Chang’s narrative aesthetics of inverted front and back scenes,and deepened the realm of “desolation aesthetics”.What the third chapter pays attention to is the close relationship between Eileen Chang and visual culture studies,involving film and television adaptation,screenplays,and photography nostalgia in North America,highlighting the key significance of visual culture to her text and “Eileen Chang fever”,from which we can also see the emphasis of North American academia on Eileen Chang’s screenwriter identity when combing screenplays.The fourth chapter begins with Eileen Chang’s literary and academic activities in Shanghai,Hong Kong,and the United States,and outlines the images of Eileen Chang as a bilingual writer,translator,and scholar in North American research.With feminism as background,its first section combs the different discrimination and internal progression of her writing and fame in wartime Shanghai by North American scholars.And the second section focuses more on the research of North American researchers on her bilingual creation and translation works in the United States Information Service in Hong Kong,and also discusses her translation and research on The Sing-song Girls of Shanghai and Dream of the Red Chamber when she was in the United States.To sum up,Eileen Chang went from New Criticism to more “ideological”Cultural Studies,and the interpretation toward her has changed several times.So far,the research has shown that Eileen Chang’s transcendence not only lies in the aesthetic value spread across time but also is in the implication of her political and cultural criticism.At first,it is Eileen Chang’s defection and confrontation against the May Fourth literary tradition in modern Chinese literature that was affirmed,but later her cross-language literary practice was also confirmed,which is not only a question of modern Chinese literature and political discourse but also a comprehensive refutation of the rigid literary expression and political division,highlighting her fluidity that is difficult to be captured and qualitative.In addition,the academic relationship in the North American community is presented to a certain extent,and the fact that the scholars are both friend and mentor is also worth noting.Hsia,C.T.and his student,Edward Mansfield Gunn,adhered to the aesthetic standpoint of humanism,and lots of their judgments became an important base.Chow Rey’s gender politics also clarifies the subversion of Eileen Chang in the dual dynamic relationship,and becomes the inevitable beginning of using marginal politics to deal with “Chang Studies”.The most important academic school of studies on Eileen Chang in North America should be represented by Leo Lee and David Wang.Lee’s students,such as Nicole Huang,Xu Zidong,Shu-mei Shih,and Wang ban,have been involved in “Chang Studies”,and they also led their students to continue studies on Eileen Chang.Among them,Nicole Huang has a strong representation in the whole English world.Wang Xiaojue,a student of David Wang,continued to deep “Chang Studies”.While undertaking Wang’s academic ideas,she also made a breakthrough and further confirmed Eileen Chang’s literary achievements.Karen S.Kingsbury,another doctoral student of Wang,was one of the most important translators in Eileen Chang’s English world and pushed her into the world literary market.Overall,the most representative new generation of “Chang Studies” researchers in North America are Nicole Huang and Wang Xiaojue.