MCLC: Milena Dolezelova

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: Milena Doleželová
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It is with great sadness that I announce the news that Milena Doleželová
recently passed away in her hometown of Prague. The last time I saw
Professor Doleželová was this past June, when a group of her former
students convened a small conference in Prague in honor of our teacher’s
80th birthday. At the time, she appeared hale and full of spirit. She, and
several of her colleagues at Charles University, offered fascinating
reminscineces of their own student days working with the “handsome” but
“demanding” Jaroslav Průšek. Professor Doleželová personally led us on two
sightseeing tours, one to Karlstejn Castle, and another through Prague
itself. We had a wonderful visit, and I will always cherish what turned
out to be our final meeting.

Like her teacher, Průšek, Professor Doleželová was one of the few scholars
to cross fluidly over the May Fourth divide—that is, to work both on
modern literature and on premodern literature. She published on Song
dynasty zhugongdiao (諸宮調), the late imperial autobiography Fusheng liuji
(浮
生六记), late Qing fiction, Lu Xun, and even the Cultural Revolution novel
Shanshan de hongxing (闪闪的红星)—a scholarly breadth that few Chinese
literature scholars exhibit. In crossing over the premodern and modern
divide, her scholarship embodies a healthy skepticism toward what I call
the May Fourth paradigm, which draws an absolute line between May Fourth
and the past.

Well before “alternative modernities” scholars made it popular, Professor
Doleželová was promoting the notion that late Qing fiction was modern and
that the late Qing period should be included in our understandings of the
early formation of modern Chinese literature. That the late Qing belonged
to “tradition” was an idea propagated by the May Fourth intellectuals
themselves, at once a polemical rejection of tradition and a form of
self-affirmation. And with her 1980 edited book on late Qing fiction (The
Chinese Novel at the Turn of the Century), she showed an early skepticism
toward the May Fourth’s own rhetorical strategies. What I learned from
Professor Doleželová was precisely this kind of questioning of prevailing
scholarly views and the importance of recognizing that scholarship itself
has its ideological motivations. But I also learned about scholarly rigor,
the need to be careful and to get it right, and the importance of
producing work that will last.

Those of you who were fortunate to have met her also know that she was a
charming and delightful person.

I will miss her greatly.

 
Kirk Denton