China Heritage<\/em> was launched on\u00a015 December 2016 at the conference \u2018Political Enchantments: aesthetic practices and the Chinese state\u2019. That conference, organised by Gloria Davies \u9ec3\u6a02\u5ae3<\/a> and Christian Sorace<\/a>\u00a0with the support of the Australian Centre on China in the World,\u00a0was held at ANU House in Melbourne, Australia. Gloria and Christian invited me to present an\u00a0opening address, the title of which\u00a0was\u00a0\u2018Living with Xi Dada\u2019s China \u2014 making choices and cutting deals\u2019. At the end of my remarks I\u00a0announced that John Minford and I had founded\u00a0The Wairarapa Academy for New Sinology<\/a>\u00a0whereupon I formally launched the website\u00a0China Heritage<\/em><\/a>. For the video recording and revised text of that lecture, see:<\/p>\n In 2015, John Minford gave a final series of nineteen lectures over two semesters on Chinese literature and translation at The Australian National University. At the time, Asian Studies at the university was in a state of disarray due to a ‘review’ of the teaching faculty which, in the name of cost-cutting and efficiencies, rained down a shower of absurdities on what was the former Faculty of Asian Studies, a faculty where\u00a0both John Minford and Geremie Barm\u00e9 were trained.<\/p>\n For years prior to this latest round of ill-conceived and mismanaged restructuring the\u00a0Faculty had been\u00a0a wounded beast, long in search of a serious intellectual rationale and increasingly prey to the mercurial whims of the Managerial Class and their academic collaborators. The academocratic authors of the\u00a0folly of 2015-2016 would themselves fall from grace, but the ethos of mindless reform and economism continued to hold sway.<\/p>\n Although John’s 2015 course on Chinese literature was ‘on the books’, no teaching facilities or lecture theatre were provided by what John would later call ‘The Sunken Ship’ of the Asian Studies faculty. In his capacity as Director of the Austalian Centre on China in the World (CIW), Geremie Barm\u00e9 invited John to present the lectures in the CIW Building<\/a> from March 2015. Those lectures would be an academic ‘swan song’ for them both and, as chance would have it, they would help forge the basis for The Wairarapa Academy for New Sinology. Below are the titles of the last six lectures and recordings of the first three. \u2014 The Editor<\/i><\/p>\n This course of lectures will explore the extraordinarily rich tradition of Chinese literature from its beginnings to the end of the Tang dynasty (tenth century, CE). It will observe the spirit in which the Chinese have written and read, the ways in which they have commented on, creatively participated in and borrowed from, quoted, adapted, stolen, and copied their own literary heritage, and how they continue to do so. Above all it will discover how central literature is to the whole culture and society of China, perhaps more so than is the case with any other of the world\u2019s cultures. Chinese literature remains as vital in the Chinese world today, for its creators, thinkers, writers, politicians and readers, as at any time in that country\u2019s long history.<\/p>\n Chinese literary creativity is a different way of doing things, of viewing the written word and the Art of Letters. The legacy of literature binds together the Chinese present and its past. It also challenges many of our own, Western, preconceptions, and offers an inspiration to today\u2019s writers and students of literature throughout the world, opening up exciting new possibilities.<\/p>\n For more information on\u00a0the lectures, see here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Lecture One:<\/b> Lecture Two:<\/b> Lecture Three:<\/b> Lecture Four:<\/b> Lecture Five:<\/b> Lecture Six:<\/b> In February and March 2016, John Minford<\/a>, co-founder of The Wairarapa Academy for New Sinology<\/a> and a leading translator of literary Chinese, presented \u2018On Culture &\u00a0Translation<\/a>\u2019, a series of five public lectures at the Hang Seng Management College \u6052\u751f\u7ba1\u7406\u5b78\u9662<\/a> in Hong Kong where he is Sin Wai Kin Honorary Professor of Translation and Culture \u51bc\u70ba\u5805\u69ae\u8b7d\u6559\u6388 (\u4e2d\u570b\u6587\u5316\u8207\u7ffb\u8b6f) in the School of Translation.<\/p>\n In his lectures John traces a lineage of leading British interpreters of Chinese literature and thought by focussing on four translators: James Legge, Herbert Giles, Arthur Waley and David Hawkes.\u00a0The Introductory Lecture addressed the broad topic of Culture and Translation and the nurturing of the literary or cultivated mind, what in Chinese is known as xi\u016by\u01ceng <\/i>\u4fee\u990a, or, in French, formation<\/i>,\u00a0Bildung<\/em> in German. This is a subject that we will continue to consider in China Heritage.<\/i><\/p>\n John extols translators and their role in world civilisation as Warriors of Light. His overview of these four great translators whose work spans one and a-half centuries offers readers an insight into a little-appreciated Lineage of Light, one that remains vital for the appreciation and understanding of the Chinese world.<\/p>\n \u2014 Geremie R. Barm\u00e9, Editor, China Heritage<\/i><\/p>\n\n
\nChinese Literature in Translation<\/h2>\n
by John Minford<\/h2>\n
Series I: ‘Chinese Literature’, February-May 2015<\/h3>\n
Series II: ‘Six Lectures from a Sunken Ship’, September-October\u00a02015<\/h3>\n
\nThe Song Dynasty Lyric \u5b8b\u8a5e, Part I
\nAn introduction to some of the finest practitioners in this new and almost untranslatable poetic genre, including Qin Guan \u79e6\u89c0, Liu Yong \u67f3\u6c38 and the greatest Chinese woman-poet of any period Li Qingzhao \u674e\u6e05\u7167.
\nFor a recording of the lecture, download here<\/a>.<\/p>\n
\nThe Song Dynasty Lyric \u5b8b\u8a5e, Part II
\nFor a recording of the lecture, download here<\/a>.<\/p>\n
\nThe Classical Tale
\nPu Songling\u2019s Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio<\/i> \u84b2\u677e\u9f61\u8457\u300a\u804a\u9f4b\u5fd7\u7570\u300b, the final culmination of the tradition established by the earlier ‘stories of the strange’\u00a0\u5fd7\u602a and the Tang tales \u50b3\u5947.
\nFor a recording of the lecture, download here<\/a>.<\/p>\n
\n The Story of the Stone <\/i>\u77f3\u982d\u8a18\/ \u7d05\u6a13\u5922
\nChina\u2019s greatest novel. John will talk about the wonderful post-modern study of the novel, Re-reading The Stone<\/i>, as a tribute to its author, the late Anthony Yu. He will also show an extract from the \u2018In Conversations\u2019 video they made together back in 2008.<\/p>\n
\nSix Chapters of a Floating Life \u6d6e\u751f\u516d\u8a18
\nThis and other personal memoirs of the Ming-Qing period, such as Zhang Chao’s \u5f35\u6f6e\u00a0Quiet Dream Shadows<\/i> \u5e7d\u5922\u5f71 will be discussed. Little known, but of superb quality, these poignant works continue the grand tradition of belles lettres<\/i> \u7b46\u8a18 literature.<\/p>\n
\nQing Dynasty Poetry of the Eighteenth\u00a0Century
\nYuan Mei \u8881\u679a, as translated by Arthur Waley, and the lyric verse of the Manchu poet Nalan \u0160ingde\u00a0\u7d0d\u862d\u6027\u5fb7.<\/p>\n
\nA Lineage of Light \u2014 Four Translators<\/h2>\n
by John Minford<\/h2>\n
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\nOn Change<\/strong><\/h3>\n