Series:

Chinese Studies Scholars Oral History Project

Topic:

Chinese Studies

Biographical Note:

Professor Emerita, Premodern Chinese Literature, University of Pittsburgh (PhD in Comparative Literature from Indiana University).

Interviewer:

Liu, Gang and Wang, Haixia

Interviewee:

Sun, Chu-Chin Cecile

Persons Present:

Sun, Liu and Wang

Place Conducted:

Zoom video conferencing platform

Interviewer Background and Preparation:

The interviewers prepared for the interview by reading Cecile Chu-Chin Sun’s The Poetics of Repetition in English and Chinese Lyric Poetry (2011, The University of Chicago Press) and Pearl From the Dragon’s Mouth: Evocation of Scene and Feeling in Chinese Poetry (1995, The University of Michigan Press).

Processing of Interview:

The following text has been reviewed and edited by the interviewee. The words in the parentheses were added to complement, clarify, and even correct what was said in the original oral interview. Due to the complexity of the ideas involved, some of these additions may be long. In addition, deletions were made from the original oral interview for various reasons. As such, any future references to this oral interview will have to be made to its written transcript as follows.

Length:

2.5 hrs

Copyright:

Regents of the University of California, UCLA Library.

Audio:

Series Statement:

The past sixty years have been an important period in the development of Chinese studies in the U.S and Canada. Those years have seen increased funding from Title VI and other sources, the evolution of new fields and areas of specialization, and the systematization and professionalization of scholarly training. They have also seen momentous changes in China’s status in the world and in the relationship between China and the U.S.—changes that, in turn, have had major consequences for the scope, status, and impact of the field of Chinese studies.Although these have been highly consequential years for Chinese studies, the details of these developments are often preserved only in the participants’ memories, and there has been no systematic effort to record those memories. The Chinese Studies Scholars Oral History Project is a collaboration among Chinese/East Asian studies librarians and scholars in the U.S. and Canada, the UCLA Richard C. Rudolph East Asian Library, and the UCLA Library Center for Oral History Research. Through in-depth, multi-session oral histories, it documents the development of the field of Chinese studies, the academic careers of its prominent practitioners, and the social, political, and economic context of which it was a part. Some interviews in the series are not available online at this time, among those the interviews with the following: Evelyn Rawski, Thomas Rawski.

Childhood in Taiwan—Influence of her father, an educator and co-founder of a University, and, later, the president of National Taiwan Normal University, and her mother, a person born into an intellectually distinguished family with extraordinary vision— Growing up in a family where carving out one’s own path according to one’s innate passion was instilled —Undergraduate education in English Language and Literature at National Taiwan Normal University as a top student in her class throughout—Pursuit of graduate study in English literature at Boston College (BC)—Increasing nostalgia for Chinese literature and culture and interest to compare it with its Western counterpart while studying at BC—Entering Harvard’s East Asian Languages and Civilizations Department as a means to pursue Chinese-Western Comparative Literature—Leaving Harvard due to unacceptable misogyny—Intervening years as simultaneous interpreter at the UN and teaching interpretation and translation at the Monterey Institute of International Studies—Resuming study in the Doctoral program of Comparative Literature at Indiana University, known for its openness to Asian literatures and rigorous academic program, culminating in a 500-page doctoral dissertation on comparing Chinese and Western Poetry which won the best dissertation of the year--Beginning teaching career at the University of Pittsburgh after a negatively memorable job talk at UC Berkeley, eight courses were developed for a comprehensive education of both Chinese literature and its cultural foundation, taught always with a perspective to compare China and the West. Closer coordination between language teaching and content courses at the Department was initiated and executed.

Locating the common basis of comparison as the crucial importance in comparing disparate traditions of literature/poetry—Why and how “feeling-scene” in Chinese poetry and “tenor-vehicle” (two parts of a metaphor) in Western poetry constitute a viable common basis for comparison—Similarities and differences between the “feeling-scene” relationship and the “tenor-vehicle” relationship—“Vehicle” in Western metaphor represents external reality (mostly sourced from nature as well) internalized as simply a subservient means of expressing the tenor of the poem, not an integral part of the “tenor”--“Scene” in Chinese poetry not only bodies forth the “feeling” of the poem but is an integral part (a physical context) of “feeling”—Various examples from both poetic traditions to illustrate such differences between these two lyrical relationships--How such differences are rooted in the distinction between xing (in its broader sense as lyrical energy) and mimesis (as expounded by Plato, Aristotle, Ricoeur) —Mimesis is the product of a dualistic view of reality deeply embedded in traditional Western mode of thinking–-Xing represents a holistic view of reality as expressed in the age-old notion of the unity between “man and nature “ in the Chinese tradition since antiquity¬¬¬—Consideration of the cultural context in comparative studies involving diverse traditions is a must. . Review of Chinese-Western comparative studies in the past half century: two general problems stemming from disregarding the cultural context of the works compared—First, the myopic problem where superficial similarities/parallels characterized by “this reminds me of that” type of piecemeal association as comparison and their various examples—Second, the hypermetropic problem where unrelated critical theories (mostly Western) are imposed on the analysis of Chinese works and their various examples--The raison d’etre of comparative studies lies in shedding new light on the works compared that is otherwise undiscoverable in a monocultural context– Cultural colonialism implicit in the wide (mis) application of Western theories in Chinese-Western comparative studies due to the strong impact of the West in modern times--Examples of influential Chinese scholars’ negligence of the fundamental cultural distinction between China and the West as noted in Feng Youlan, Wang Guowei and Xu Zhimo-- All comparative studies should be conducted on the basis of equality and reciprocity.