MCLC: Yu Daful panel--cfp

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Valerie Levan <vlevan at uchicago.edu>
Subject: Yu Dafu panel--cfp
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Writing Between Worlds: Critical Approaches to Yu Dafu
AAS 2014, Philadelphia, PA  March 27-30

 
The modern Chinese writer Yu Dafu (1896-1945) is an elusive, enigmatic
figure. Efforts to pin his writing down into particular critical
categories are similarly inconclusive.  Critical approaches to Yu Dafu’s
writing that would classify his work variously as Romanticism,
autobiography, decadence, for instance, often fall short or result in
contradiction. Without question, Yu Dafu influenced the development of
modern conceptions of subjectivity and expanded the possibilities for
emotional expression in vernacular prose and, arguably, in classical
poetry.  Less certain, however, is Yu Dafu’s position vis à vis other
writers, or vis à vis Modern Chinese literary history. Much of
contemporary scholarship seeks to understand his work in part by locating
him within schools of modern Chinese literature or East Asian and Western
literary trends. The often compelling results are puzzlingly multifarious:
 images emerge of Yu Dafu the Romantic, Yu Dafu the I-Novelist, Yu Dafu
the “Superfluous Man,” and so on.

 
This panel will create a forum in which scholars of Yu Dafu can engage
with each other.  The aim of the panel is not to resolve critical
differences but to sharpen individual perspectives through the careful
consideration of contrasting views.We seek panelists who will present
papers that deal with different time periods and aspects of Yu Dafu’s
literary career – his early prose work, his classical-style poetry, and/or
his role in the imagination of contemporary writers and filmmakers.

Please send 250 word abstracts to Valerie Levan vlevan at uchicago.edu by
August 1, 2013.