City University of Hong Kong Dep
Department of Chinese, Translation and Linguistics
Research Seminar
Zhang Taiyan's Thoughts: Its Relationship with Japan in Meiji Period
Presented by
Dr. Lin Shaoyang
The University of Tokyo, Japan
Date: 31 August 2009, Monday
Time: 2:45 - 3:45pm
Venue: B7603 (7/F, Blue Zone), Academic Building, CityU
Abstract
Zhang Taiyan (1869－1936) is a revolutionary thinker and a great scholar who flourished in the late Qing and the early Republic of China, a period when China entered the global capitalist system of nation-states. Among the process from the formation to maturity of his thoughts, his relationship with contemporary Japan has played an important role. He has stayed in Japan for three times owing to his political exiles (1899/6/14－the last ten-day period of July, 1902/2/28－July, 1906/7/15－1911/12/1). He absorbed nutrition from the contemporary Japanese scholarly results as well as the western thoughts through Japanese translations. The presentation will briefly discuss his relationship with Japan and the possibility of Zhang Taiyan's critical theory in modern China and modern Japan. The points of the speech are as follows:
1. The changes of the modern Japanese Sinology in the context of Japanese intellectual history: its relationship with the interpretation of Zhang Taiyan
2. The relationship between Zhang Taiyan's thoughts and Meiji Japan
3. Not just influence: Zhang Taiyan's “quotation” from Japanese philosopher Anezaki Masaharu (an example)
4. Few characteristics of Zhang Taiyan's linguistic thoughts: in connection of the postmodern European philosophers
5. The theoretical possibilities of Zhang Taiyan's thoughts in today's China and Japan
Speaker
Dr. Lin Shaoyang is currently Associate Professor at Department of Chinese and Korean, College of Arts and Sciences, the University of Tokyo. He had been Assistant Professor at the University of Tokyo from April 2004 to March 2006. His books include The Conflict of Wen in Japanese Modernity (Beijing: Central Compilation & Translation Press, 2004), Rhetoric as Thoughts: Zhang Taiyan and Critical Theory in the Sphere of Chinese Characters from a Linguistic Perspective (Tokyo: Hakutakusha Press, forthcoming in Oct 2009) and The Genealogy of Rhetorical Criticism in Modern Japan: From Natsume Sōseki to Nishiwaki Junzaburo ( Tokyo: Keio University Press, forthcoming in June 2010). His doctoral dissertation is The Concept of Wen or Bun (“文”) in Chinese and Japanese Context: An Argument Developed from Nishiwaki Junzaburo's Concept of Irony (The University of Tokyo, Oct 2006).
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