Artists questioning society

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Ah Q

• Artists questioning society
• Kristen Carrigan 9-17-04

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Concept Map
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How will this connect to Ah Q?

• Everyone seemed to be grasping the symbols,
  themes etc within the story.
• We have a lot of context in our readings for the
  week.
• across political boundaries
• across time periods
• across languages
• across genres
• across the lines of demarcation between
  literature and other cultural productions
• Defined most broadly, comparative literature is
  the study of "literature without walls."

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You say you want a revolution...
Acknowledging that there is a dominant
ideology Understanding the tradition in order to
revolt Finding the flaws in that system Desiring
change Providing an alternative to the current
situation
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• Lu Xun
• 
  Mao, by Andy Warhol
• 
  1972-1973

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Anti-Confucianism in earlier times

• The Story of Emperor Qin Shihuang"Burning the
  Books and Burying the Scholars"
• He ordered, at his advisors'
• advice, all Confucius texts
• as well as all books not
• related to Science, Math and
• reading oracles to be
• burnt in 231 BC

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Comparing places

• Ushering in modernity---Henrik Ibsen, Norway
• largely responsible for the decline of the
  Victorian drama and the rise of the Modern
• In no case could I join a party aiming for
  majority. On the contrary I cannot escape
  saying The minority is always right. Of course I
  do not think of the minority of conservatives who
  are left behind by the great party of the middle,
  whom by us are called the liberals but I mean
  the minority which is in front, which advances
  where the majority has not yet arrived. I mean,
  the one who is most in touch with the future has
  the right.
• During the May 4 period, Lu Xun said Rather
  than worship Confucius and Guan Gong (a
  well-known general from the period of Three
  Kingdoms) one should worship Darwin and Ibsen.
  (Chengzhou He)

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Peer Gynt (1867) Similar characters Ostracized
dreamers These two downtrodden losers, however,
have the boldest dreams .... For both Ah Q and
Peer, dreams are their defensive shields against
the intrusion of real life. (Chengzhou He)

• Symbolic Characters
• In the introduction of his translation of Peer
  Gynt, John Northam specifies the targets an
  obstinate and petty-minded obsession with
  national self -sufficiency, a capacity for
  self-delusion and cultural complacency, an inert
  and stagnating conservatism, above all a
  propensity for moral evasiveness, all of them
  dangerously active, to Ibsens mind, in the
  country he had left in disgust two years earlier

Ah Q is the Chinese counterpart of Peer Gynt in
that they both represent the negative character
traits in the author himself and of the nation
as a whole. (Chengzhou He)
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What would a contemporary Ah Q be like?
The pendulum swings THEN Confucianism was seen
as glorifying a political and familial
authoritarianism that shackled the
individual...(Denton) NOW the advertising which
has become ubiquitous proposes to each of us
that we transform ourselves, or our lives by
buying something more...We move towards a
cultural understanding of a world centered around
us as individuals.-Kihn

• What traits would Ah Q have today?
• What revolutions would Lu Xun be affiliated
  with?
• Adbusters.org
• "In a totalitarian system, you aren't allowed to
  talk back to the government in the corporate
  system, you can't talk back to the sponsor"

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Bibliography

• http//www.lib.monash.edu.au/subjects/chinese/
  -Monash University Library
• Chengzhou He (Nanjing University) "Peer Gynt, Ah
  Q, and the Dissolved Self10th International
  Ibsen Conference. 2003
• Kihn, Paul and Hudak, Glenn M. Labeling
  Pedagogy and Politics Labeling the Young. Hope
  and contemporary childhood. RoutledgeFalmer. 2001
• Denton, Kirk A. The May Fourth Period 1915-1925

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Bibliography

• Engelstad, Fredrik. Democracy as aristocratic
  radicalism? Henrik Ibsen as critic of
  democracy. Institute for Social Research.
  ltwww.samfunnsforskning.nogt