Within global population movements, litterateurs usually use a complex and strategy-oriented way to remember or cut transnational memories, identities and histories. On the intersection, overseas Chinese Literature charts the various ways in which tourism and migration from China and associated political, social, and cultural issues. As a result of Chinese diaspora and increasing global cultural interactions, scholars have proposed various analytical frameworks to remap the current field of Chinese-language literature. This course tends to maintain a cross culture perspective, focuses on the interpretation of the Overseas Chinese literature (or world Chinese literature) `s relationship with modern China.
This course offers students an opportunity to study selected Taiwanese literature, Hong Kong literature, Macau literature and overseas Chinese-language literature and films. They all provide a critical examination of various literary articulations of diaspora and the creative construction of memories, identities and cultures in a transnational context. They highlight the diverse ways in which overseas Chinese people combined and transformed resources from previously divergent traditions to express how engagement informs the ways in which ‘China’ is conceived, mapping new directions in research and testing the complexity of transnational lives today.
The main aim of this course is deepen the understanding of contemporary China from a transnational migrant literature conversation. Students can explore and challenge existing notions of nationalism, cultural identity, and the continuity of Chinese language, as well as confining the concept of overseas Chinese literature to examination of its relationship with Modern Chinese history and its society.