By Lian Benasuly
The English language’s influence on Chinese poetry — and vice versa — is the glue that holds the Chinese poetry field together, says Nick Admussen, assistant professor of Chinese literature and culture at Cornell University.
“The deep language mix of long-term immigrants is more than a side effect of our study. It is our strength and the thing that holds us together as an intellectual community,” Admussen said at a Zoom symposium on Chinese poetry this Saturday.
In order for non-Chinese speakers to read Chinese poetry, it has to be translated and English’s position as a global language makes it crucial for translation to be credible and authentic, according to Hangping Xu, assistant professor of Chinese literature and culture in UC Santa Barbara’s department of East Asian Language and Cultural Studies.
Admussen and Xu were among 12 international scholars in the field of Chinese literature who spoke at the symposium “Translatability/Transmediality: Chinese Poetry In/And the World.”
Hangping Xu of UCSB, one of two organizers of the symposium. The other organizer of the symposium was Yunte Huang, a professor in UCSB’s Department of English.
The two-day symposium took place from 8 to 10 a.m. on both Friday and Saturday to best accommodate people attending the conference from around the world. UCSB’s East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies Department co-hosted the event with the Advanced Institute for Global Chinese Studies in Hong Kong. It was also sponsored by UCSB’s Carsey-Wolf Center.
Two UCSB faculty members, Hangping Xu and Yunte Huang, organized the symposium to promote a special edition of a scholarly journal they have been working on for over a year with 10 other scholars from around the world.
The special issue will be published in the journal “Prism: Theory, and Modern Chinese Literature” by the Duke University Press in March 2023.
“We hope to not only promote the special issue but give UCSB more representation in the field and render UCSB as a prominent place of studying Chinese poetry and comparative literature,” Xu said.
The 12 presenters at the conference were the 12 authors of the articles in the special issue. Each scholar had 15 minutes to present their research during the symposium.
The conference was utterly international at its core. The scholars who presented their research come from universities around the world. And time zones did not stop people from partaking in the symposium last weekend. Over 100 people attended the symposium on Friday and nearly 90 on Saturday.
Nick Admussen during his presentation “The Poetry Turn: Writing Chinese Cultural Studies Between Empires,” on the second day of the symposium, co-hosted by UCSB’s Department of East Asian Studies.
The two main focus areas of the special issue are translatability, which refers to the impact of translation on the poetry, and transmediality, which refers to poetry adapting to different mediums, such as film and social media.
When Chinese literature travels beyond its national borders, it can get mistranslated or appropriated for political or social purposes. Because of this, credible translation is essential, Xu said.
“As scholars of Chinese and comparative literature, we are invested in the topic of translation and circulation of Chinese literature in the world. And, of course when Chinese literature is read by non-Chinese readers, it depends on translation,” Xu said.
He added that transmediality plays an important role in the worldwide spread of Chinese poetry. Although traditional written poetry still leads the way as the primary medium, old and new mediums, such as carvings on walls and social media, can open the door for larger and more diversified audiences to read poetry.
In Saturday’s session, Xu spoke about the immense power of social media in the circulation and popularization of poetry. In 2014, a poet with cerebral palsy, Yu Xiujua, uploaded her poem, “Crossing Half of China to Sleep With You,” on social media. Almost instantly, the poem went viral and she became acclaimed for her poetry.
“Poetry today is dependent on many different mediums, and in this case, social media which made Yu Xiujua a celebrity poet in China and around the world,” Xu said.
In an increasingly complex world, poetry can be the light at the end of the tunnel, according to Xu. It can help people understand the world around them. But, translatability and transmediality can both impact the way a poem is perceived and can either tarnish or support the original voice of the poem.
“There’s something universal about literature,” Xu said. “Non-Chinese speakers can learn how this poetry helps us understand the most pressing issues and see the world in a more interconnected way.”
Lian Benasuly is a fourth-year student at UC Santa Barbara, majoring in communication and pursuing a minor in professional writing. She is a web and social media intern for the Division of Humanities and Fine Arts.