Antipodean China considers the relationship between Chinese literature and world literature, initially from the perspective of writers in English, mainly Antipodean, and reciprocally, inquiring into the relationship between Chinese literature and world literature from a Chinese perspective.
What presence does China, or Chinese literature, have in the work or imagination of writers in Australia? How does this differ from other Anglophone writers, or writers in other European languages, or other ‘southern’ or Antipodean writers?
How might such questions be considered reciprocally? What presence does Australia, for example, or Australian literature, have for writers in Chinese? Is it possible to speak of influences from ‘southern’ or Antipodean writers on Chinese literature?
What is the work of translation in this situation? How does it function in practice? What contribution can literary criticism or scholarship make? What are the difficulties to be overcome? Is it possible to arrive at a language for a shared discussion of aesthetic ideas and effects between Chinese and Anglophone commentators?
Importantly, the project recognises that Australian literature and Aboriginal (or Indigenous) Australian literature are distinct domains that sometimes overlap or respond to each other. The creative practice of the first Australians over thousands of years has an independent presence in world literature, and also for Chinese writers, translators and scholars with their own perspective of long duration. Finding adequate expression for such relationships is a necessary and enriching dimension of the research.
The project aims to develop the inquiry with a focus on the experience of writers who engage with world literary contexts through participating in literary exchanges such as writers’ festivals, residences and international collaboration (such as this research). The China Australia Literary Forum that ran for the fourth time in April 2017 in Guangzhou and the fifth time at the University of Melbourne in September 2019 is one relevant example, a partnership with the Chinese Writers’ Association and the Australian Institute for Arts and Culture, WSU. The Antipodean China workshop held at the University of Adelaide in November 2017 was another, an occasion for participants to reflect together on the issues raised above. As well the series of visits by writers, publishers, editors, translators and critics between China and Australia continues under the auspices of the Other Worlds research project, including the visits of Hao Jingfang, Huo Yan, Julie Koh, Dorothy Tse and Ah Yi and for the OzAsia Festival in Adelaide and most recently the visit to Sydney by Wu Qi from One Way Street in Beijing. A compilation of writings by participants in these events titled Antipodean China is due from Giramondo in 2020.
Theme Content
Antipodean China workshop
23-24 November, 2017, The University of Adelaide
Contemporary Chinese Literature – Panel Discussion
28 November 2017, Western Sydney University.
China Australia Literary Forum 2017
7-11 May, Guangzhou (in Guangdong Province)
China Australia Literary Forum 2019
2 September 2019, The University of Melbourne
Review of ‘A New Literary History of Modern China’
January-February 2018, Nicholas Jose
Nicholas Jose Book Chapter – ‘Transcultural Affinities’
in Transcultural Encounters in Knowledge Production and Consumption, March 2018.
Book Launch: Professor Li Yao’s Ten-volume Translation of Australian Literature
12 April 2018, Western Sydney University
