Intensive Chinese Language Scholarship
Morgan Silvers (East Asian languages and literatures, international studies)
Grace Weems (East Asian languages and literatures, international studies)

Louise Zung-Nyi Loh Memorial Scholarship
Wen Holmes (East Asian languages and literatures)
Hui Yao (East Asian languages and literatures)

John Crespi to present on Zhang Leping’s Sanmao on April 21

The University Libraries Area Studies Department, with support from the Area Studies Centers, will present a lecture by John A. Crespi, Colgate University, on Wednesday, April 21 from 3:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. online (registration required). Professor Crespi will present "The Real and Serial in Zhang Leping’s The Wandering Life of Sanmao (1947-1948)."

Abstract: Sanmao, or “Three Hairs,” has entertained and educated readers in China and beyond from 1935 to the present, ranking him among the world’s longest-lived comics characters. Sanmao’s creator, Zhang Leping (1910-1992), adapted the wordless escapades of this gangly, pumpkin-headed orphan boy across more than fifty years of a changing historical landscape, from the mass entertainment of 1930s Shanghai and brutal wars of invasion and civil strife in the 1940s to Mao’s mass campaigns of the 1950s and on into the post-Mao era of economic reform. Sanmao lives on today in comics reprints in multiple languages, as well as a huge range of transmedia productions from live-action and animated films to stage plays, propaganda exhibits and even museums. Sanmao became a household name between the years 1947 and 1948, when Zhang Leping published The Wandering Life of Sanmao (Sanmao liulangji) across 250 installments in the Shanghai newspaper Dagong bao (L’Impartial). Wandering Life resonated with the realities of historical crisis during those years, a time of disastrous economic collapse and civil war on the eve of the 1949 Chinese communist revolution. Just as, if not more, important to the strip’s impact and lasting fame, however, was its form: an open-ended, serial comic strip embedded within the pages of another open-ended serial, the daily paper. How these two globalized serial forms, one fictional and the other factual, worked in symbiosis to engage the imagination of readers on the eve of a revolution is the topic of this lecture.

Central Eurasian Studies Society accepting proposals for 2021 CESS Annual Conference

The Central Eurasian Studies Society, with support from the East Asian Studies Center, will hold the 2021 CESS Annual Conference at The Ohio State University (Columbus, OH) from Thursday, October 14 through Sunday, October 17.

For CESS 2021, submissions relating to all aspects of humanities and social science scholarship are invited. The geographic domain of Central Eurasia encompasses Central Asia, the Caucasus, Iran, Afghanistan, Tibet, Mongolia, Siberia, Inner Asia, the Black Sea region, the Volga region, and East and Central Europe. Practitioners and scholars in all fields with an interest in this region are encouraged to participate.

In light of on-going pandemic conditions, papers and panels can be proposed in in-person, online, and hybrid formats. Panels may be proposed in English, Russian or other languages; individual papers must be in English.

The submission deadline is May 3.

Fulbright Week 2021 schedule released

Each year the Office of International Affairs, the Graduate School, and the Undergraduate Fellowship Office combine efforts to provide a full week of events including information sessions, workshops, and panels to inform faculty, graduate and undergraduate students about the opportunities available through the Fulbright and Fulbright-Hays programs. All Ohio State faculty, professionals, graduate and undergraduate students are welcome to participate in Fulbright Week from Monday, April 12 through Friday, April 16. All sessions are virtual in 2021.

OIA accepting applications for Orientation Leaders

The Office of International Affairs is now accepting applications for orientation leaders for the 2021-22 academic year, a diverse group of students who welcome new international students to Ohio State and the city of Columbus and help them adapt to life in the United States. This is a paid position. Interested students must be available during International Student Orientation and Check-in from Monday, July 26 through Monday, August 23.

The application deadline is April 18.

Uganda Kwan to present on The World of Suzie Wong on
April 12

The Center for Languages, Literatures and Cultures will present a lecture by Uganda Sze Pui Kwan, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, on Monday, April 12 from 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. online (registration required). Professor Kwan will present "The Literary Rewriting as Paratext: The Censored Chinese translation of The World of Suzie Wong."

Abstract: The World of Suzie Wong has gained global popularity, since its publication in 1957, because of its use of aesthetic, sentimental and romantic tropes. It is also a novel which is built on a broad array of stereotypical images wherein the Orient is allegorised in the story of a sexy and submissive Asian prostitute who is being trampled on. With good fortune, she is rescued and liberated by a white British man. Myriad literary researches have critiqued the racist discourse that underlies the story and its various adaptations on the stage since the 1960s. Still, no previous research has taken on the translated Chinese version, The Barmaid (1988), that came out at the historical juncture of Britain’s handover of Hong Kong when the capitalist colony was used instrumentally as a bridging tool to pave the way for China’s open-door policy in the 1980s. Despite being the only official translated version available on mainland China, during the new millennium, any information related to this translation has either remained obscure or has been deliberately wiped out. Through a careful intertext reading among translation and creation, and between the censored and original publication, this paper unveils the politics behind the censorship. With social, political and historical analyses of the genealogical evolution of the literary icon “Suzie Wong”, this study argues that the earlier literary rewritings of the racist discourse by Sinophone writers in the early 1980s has become the paratext to facilitate the translation and the subsequent censorship of the translation.

CUHK accepting proposals for its Biennial Chinese Studies International Conference Series