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SESSION 3A
HIstory (I)
CHAIR:
STEFANOV Nako, Prof. Dr.,
Department of Japanese Studies,
Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”
VENUE:
Aula Magnum
3A: History
STEFANOV Nako, Prof. Dr.
Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”
China's Involvement in World War II
World War II / WWII / as the largest armed conflict in the history of mankind has many faces, i.e. the warfare takes place on various war’s theaters. To this day the disputes regarding key parameters of this definitively most tragic event in the course of human civilization continue, judging by the huge number of casualties in this war. An important moment in these disputes is undoubtedly the beginning of this war. From a Eurocentric point of view, it is September 1, 1939, when Nazi Germany invaded Poland. But really this war started much earlier – on China’s territory. The "Chinese face" of this war, the atrocities demonstrated by the Japanese Imperial army, the millions of Chinese civilian casualties, etc., are not well known in Europe. That is the purpose of this material - to offer a brief, but sufficiently indicative representation of this part of World War II.
CHEN Pei-Yu,
Department of Chinese Language and Culture,
Asia-Africa Institute, Faculty of Humanities,
University of Hamburg
A Preliminary Analysis of Conceptual “Natural History” of Taiwan
Under Japanese Colonial Occupation:
The Nature Writing in The Scientific History from Horikawa Yasuichi
The Taiwanese animal kingdom during the Japanese Colonial Occupation, which was researched by Horikawa Yasuichi from 1917 to 1947 on Taiwanese natural history as well as his collected research, led to a new scientific history of Taiwan during the Japanese colonial period. Not only did he record 30 years of scientific and natural history resources, but he also recorded the first historical paleography from ancient books. The documentaries assume the ancient natural history of Taiwan and manifest the beginning of Taiwanese natural literature in the scientific history. Horikawa Yasuichi made wildlife observations in nature study and associated them with ancient Taiwanese documents to write scientific animal stories. The story of scientific history - Rika Monogatari 理科物語 - was written in a unique literary style. He was the first scientist in the Japanese occupation to take down Taiwan's natural history from a scientific, historical and literary point of view. With the emergence of conceptual “Natural History” in China, Japan and Taiwan, the speaker will emphasise on the development of Taiwan's “Natural History”, how it was influenced by “Natural History” in China and Japan, as well as developed into a unique scientific system under Japanese colonial occupation. This article describes the conceptual “Natural History” of Taiwan under the Japanese occupation with the analysis of the German conceptual research method, as well as the conceptual foundations in the nature writing of scientific history from Horikawa Yasuichi.
3E Literaure
SESSION 3E
Literature (III)
CHAIR:
GOGUADZE Ana
Translator, Lecturer of Chinese Language,
I. Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University
VENUE:
Hall 2
GOGUADZE Ana,
Translator, Lecturer of Chinese Language
I.Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University
Cultural and Linguistic Aspects of Literary Translation
As a translator of the literature, you may encounter many nuances in a process of translation, mostly, due to linguistic differences. However, both linguistic and cultural differences often appear, making the translation process more complicated. It is important to know the different ways for right solutions of the problem. From my personal experience I have studied the subject and divided it into several parts: family, names, various concepts. Every language has its own specifics, as we have different cultures and concepts, so it is important for the reader to understand the concept of the book and the author's message correctly. Translation techniques and tricks are of great importance. Researching this issue and talking about it is very important. My experience may be helpful for many translators when translating from Chinese into other languages and vice versa from other languages into Chinese.
KURZYNSKI Maciej, Master of Arts
Stanford University
From "River Elegy" to "Amazing China":
The Evolution of National Discourse in the 20th century China
Separated by 30 years of rapid economic growth, the divergent aesthetics of two Chinese documentaries "River Elegy" (Heshang, 1988) and "Amazing China" (Lihaile, wode guo, 2018) merit a comparative cross-inquiry. While "River Elegy" expressed a younger generation's admiration for the azure Western culture with its overseas expeditions and scientific ingenuity, "Amazing China" turns the tables, and in its depiction of the People’s Republic as a maritime empire celebrates the sheer power of nationalized technology. To make the two documentaries illuminate each other will allow us to see that despite their aesthetic discrepancy, the seeds of hegemonic discourse were present already in the first work, not only in what Jing Wang calls the “dangerous equation” that the reform intellectuals set up between fuqiang and xiandai hua, i.e. “wealth and power” and “modernization,” but also in the monologic imagination the structures of both works partake in. The comparison will also reveal the deeply ironic fact that although the promise of River Elegy is said to have been fulfilled, the humanist scholar who cherished the national aspirations has now disappeared without a trace.
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