Lecture, 30. June 2021

Guest lecture – Zhiyi Yang: "Avant-Garde Classisist Poetry in Chinese Cyberspace"

Time:
30. June 2021, 18:00 - 20:00
Platform:
Zoom
Registration:
Registration by mail to anna.fees@uni-trier.de
Language:
  English
Speaker:

The DFG Center for Advanced Studies “Russian-Language Poetry in Transition” (FOR 2603) cordially invites you to a lecture with Prof. Dr. Zhiyi Yang streamed live via Zoom. Please register by e-mail with Anna Fees (anna.fees@uni-trier.de) no later than June 29th, 2021, to receive the stream’s access data.

Abstract:

Avant-garde classicist poetry came to prominence in Chinese cyberspace around the end of the 1990s. In this talk, I argue that it is the child of the fragmentation of literary Chinese that began in the early 20th century. Instead of entirely abandoning the classical literary language or seeking to restore a ‘pristine’ form of it, this poetry instead decides to embrace the fragments and the debris. Its avant-gardism is of another kind: the innovative hybridization of modern vernacular and classical literary languages. I will examine the works of a few leading poets – Lizilizilizi (“Plum, Chestnut, Pear”), Xutang (“Hall of Vital Breath”), Dugu-shiroushou (“Lone Carnivore”), Tianxuezhai (“Falling Snow Studio”), and Fachufumei (“Brow Brimming Bang”) – in order to discuss issues such as hybridity, musicality, and gender norms.