MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY CHINESE LITERATURE

This course aims at helping students obtain a deeper knowledge of some themes and texts of modern and contemporary Chinese literature (from the early twentieth century up to the present day), while training them develop critical awareness and a method of research, mainly based on the close reading of texts (including texts in Chinese). Students will be also guided in setting Chinese literature within a larger cultural, social, and historical perspective, throughout hte shaping of modern China, and to present their personal reflections on the contents of the course by means of both written (final paper) and oral presentations.
Chinese writer Lu Xun (1881-1936), his thought, his literary works and his legacy up to the present will be the main subject of the course.

1. Knowledge and understanding:
• Know the historical and social context in which Lu Xun's works were created and his intreplay with the society and cultural life of the time, as well as his legacy in the following cultural history of modern and contemporary China;
• Know the literary trends defining the historical context: students will be guided into a critical reflection upon the literary texts read in class weekly, in order to let them recognise their stylistic features and understand the underlying meanings, also in relation with the shaping of modern Chinese society and culture.
2. Ability to apply knowledge and understanding
• Students will be able to recognise and categorise texts in terms of genre, linguistic and lexical features specific of the author's time and social context;
• Students will be able to analyse and compare literary texts and phenomena to western literature;
3. Judgement capacity
• assess the level of one’s knowledge of texts, genres and textual analysys skill;
4. Communication skills
• argumentative skill;
• be able to communicate orally by means of class presentation and in the final exam, with clarity of exposition and accuracy in citing sources (both English and Chinese sources)
• be able to communicate in written form (final paper), demonstrating a general knowledge of the sources and of the basic rules of academic writing.
5. Learning skills
Students' ability to analyse and research autonomously Chinese literature will be tested through the final paper they are requested to write on a new topic agreed upon with the teacher. Besides, oral skills and argumentative skills will be tested during the class presentation and the final oral exam, by which they will have to demonstrate their general understanding and critical view on the course contents.

A good knowledge of Chinese language is requested, in order to be able to read modern literary texts and literary criticism in Chinese. A basic knowledge of the history of Chinese literature in the twentieth century is also recommended.

Lu Xun, his life and his works
Lu Xun's fiction: Nahan (1923) e Panghuang (1925)
Lu Xun's essays: the zawen
Poetry and prose-poems
Lu Xun as a translator
Lu Xun's reception abroad
Lu Xun and contemporary China

Lu Xun, Grida, Esitazione, a cura di N. Pesaro, Palermo, Sellerio, 2020.
Lu Xun, La falsa libertà, trad. Edoarda Masi, Quodlibet, 2014
Lu Xun, Erbe selvatiche, trad. Edoarda Masi, Quodlibet, 2003

supplementary texts (for non attending students)

David Pollard, The True Story of Lu Xun, Hong KOng, The Chinese University Press, 2002.
Davies Gloria, Lu Xun’s Revolution: Writing in a Time of Violence, Harvard University Press, 2013.
Cheng Eileen, Literary Remains. Death, Trauma, and Lu Xun's Refusal to Mourn, University of Hawai'i Press, 2013.

The exam for attending students is divided into three parts:
1) presentation in class on an agreed topic;
2) short paper (max. 3200 words) to be handed in at least one week before the oral exam;
3) oral exam about the individual paper and the general contents of the course.

Non-attending students will have to agree on a topic (related to the course content) with the teacher and write a paper of about 10 thousand words. The paper shall be sent by email at least two weeks before the oral exam. During the exam, the student will present and discuss his/her paper and will be asked general questions about the theme of the course.
Please have a look at the teacher's material on the moodle platform for the guide to essay-writing.

class teaching, seminars, students' presentations

Italian

further bibliographic information and Chinese texts will be provided throughout the course

written and oral