Media

HKU Hung Leung Hau Ling Distinguished Fellow in Humanities Professor David Der-Wei Wang to speak on “Panglossian Dream and Dark Consciousness: Modern Chinese Literature and Utopia”

19 Mar 2015

Professor David Wang Der-Wei, Hung Leung Hau Ling Distinguished Fellow in Humanities of the University of Hong Kong (HKU), and Edward C. Henderson Professor of Chinese and Comparative Literature at Harvard University is visiting HKU from March 19 to 22. He will hold a talk tomorrow (March 20, Friday) on “Panglossian Dream and Dark Consciousness: Modern Chinese Literature and Utopia”.

In the talk, Professor Wang will analyze the contested conditions of modern and contemporary Chinese utopia, as a political treatise, a literary genre, and a social imaginary. His essay starts with a review of utopian fiction in the late Qing and early Republican era, followed by a critique of select political and intellectual utopian proclamations as a “literature of persuasion” in modern China. It concludes with an exploration of the new millennium where utopian political discourse coexists with dyspotian literature.

In particular, Professor Wang will call attention to the tension between Panglossianism and “dark consciousness” arising from the contemporary debate over the future of China. By Panglossianism, he refers to the Voltairean critique of the optimism that seeks to justify the history of both the past and future in terms of “all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.” By “dark consciousness,” he refers to Professor Chang Hao’s engagement with the polemics of crisis and contingency in Chinese thought.

He is of the view that precisely because utopia is generating public debate in post-socialist China, a critical reflection on its historical lineage as well as literary underpinning is in order. One must look into the spectrum of utopian imaginary of our time, and ask whether the utopian discourse as proffered by the political machine and the dystopian fiction prevailing in the literary sphere represent the dialogical potential of Chinese reality, or more polemically, its disavowal.

Details are as below:
Date: March 20, 2015 (Friday)
Time: 4:30pm
Venue: Wang Gungwu Lecture Hall, the University of Hong Kong

Professor Wang David Der-wei
Professor David Wang Der-wei is Hung Leung Hau Ling Distinguished Fellow in Humanities at the University of Hong Kong and Edward C. Henderson Professor of Chinese and Comparative Literature at Harvard University. He is also Director of the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation Inter-University Center for Sinology, USA. In 2004, Professor Wang was elected Academician of Academia Sinica. He specializes in modern and contemporary Chinese literature, late Qing fiction and drama, and comparative literary theory.

For arrangement of interview with Professor Wang and media enquiries, please contact Miss Siow Boon Chia of the Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences at 3917 8131 or email: sbchia@hku.hk .