Monthly Archives: May 2015

Reimagining Comparative Literature with Karen Thornber

May 20, 2015Interview and profileby Sophia Valesvale

As Professor Karen Thornber pours me a cup of tea, a maintenance worker appears at the door, requesting access to the bathroom, which had not been working for the past week. Thornber quickly offers her help before returning back to the little table in the corner of her office in the small Dana-Palmer building on the Harvard campus.

“Sorry about that,” Thornber says with a smile. “There’s always something in need of repair around here.”

Director of graduate studies in Comparative Literature, Thornber has expanded the boundaries of her field. Her target is the fact that non-Western literatures are the minority in comparative literature departments. “For most of its history,” Thornber says, “the field of comparative literature as practiced in much of the world has focused largely on certain privileged European literatures.” By putting marginalized Asian literatures closer to the core of world literature Thornber intends to challenge this model. Even when Eastern literatures are praised or studied, it is generally through a western lens, as if the works of Eastern writers need to seek approval from the dominant West. Even with modern Japanese writers, such as Haruki Murakami, their recognition is based on how well their works can be translated for Western—specifically American—readerships. Rather than accept this rule of approval, which furthers an already outdated imperialist standard, Thornber wants to bring comparative literature closer to the modern global consciousness, and, ideally, attract prospective students.

Karen Thornber has spent her career building a bridge between environmental studies and East Asian literature. While these two subjects seem unrelated, in her book Ecoambiguity: Environmental Crises and East Asian Literatures (Michigan, 2012) Thornber draws a connection between East Asian writers and their fictional characters’ interactions with nature. In addition to her current responsibilities as director of graduate studies in comp lit, Thornber is director of graduate studies in Regional Studies East Asia (she’s also been chair of both programs), and holds a professorship in the Department of East Asian Languages. Despite these many distinctions, however, Thornber is easy to talk to. Her office on the second floor of the Dana-Palmer House is a shrine to her passions, with Japanese ceramics, souvenirs from Africa and the Middle East and artwork from China and Southeast Asia all in evidence.

Thornber’s primary areas of research and teaching are world literature and East Asian literature, as well as the literatures of the Indian Ocean Rim; she focuses on literary criticism of trauma and medicine. She has a Bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and a Ph. D. from Harvard. Her dissertation—Cultures and Texts in Motion: Negotiating and Reconfiguring Japan and Japanese Literature in Polyintertextual East Asian Contact Zones—won a Harvard prize, one from the American Comparative Literature Association, and one from the International Convention of Asia Scholars for the best dissertation in Asian Studies. Thornber conducted most of her research for her dissertation by doing fieldwork abroad. “In Japan there were a lot of men who could not understand the idea of a female academic.” Thornber recalls her fieldwork experience with some disbelief. “I would walk into libraries… and they would give me this ‘look.’’

Thornber was undaunted, however, and pursued her research and writing. Her first book, Empire of Texts in Motion: Chinese, Korean, and Taiwanese Transculturations of Japanese Literature (Harvard, 2009), explores interactions of Japan’s colonies’ literary worlds during the Japanese Empire (1895-1945), developing a new theory of textual influence, the “artistic contact nebula.” While this monograph was a testament to Thornber’s interest in postcolonial literature, it also challenged the conventional paradigm of literary interactions of unequal power. Determined to revolutionize her academic field further, three years later Thornber published her second book, Ecoambiguity, which draws on her interest in ecocriticism and explores the ambiguous relationships between people and their biophysical environments. Both books received major scholarly awards.

Thornber notes somewhat ruefully that just as research in comparative literature is becoming more dynamic, interest in the academic field has deteriorated.

As Comparative Literature departments at various universities and colleges in the United States face dwindling numbers of interested students—part of the national decline in the humanities—the outlook for the major seems grim. Yet as Thornber said, “it is a trend that is affecting all non-STEM majors.” Though students right now may be more interested in majors more apparently applicable to jobs, comparative literature at Harvard is introducing new courses that combine aspects of the psychology of medicine and environmental science with literary analysis. For the undergraduate program at Harvard Thornber has taught two courses, “Literature and Medicine” and “Case Studies in the Medical Humanities: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Experience of Illness and Healing ,” that pull in students with an interest in medical careers. That same interest carries over to many of the lectures and presentations Thornber has done both at Harvard and other universities.

Over the course of our interview, we finish every drop of the tea. Thornber’s welcome and her account of her work and career have delighted and impressed an interviewer; it seems quite clear that students who make their way up the stairs to Thornber’s office and, drawn by the new vision she has brought to her fields, into her courses, will be equally delighted and impressed.

Profile: Daniela Bartalesi-Graf

May 19, 2015Interview and profilerhargrov

When people discuss the challenges facing EU nations, Italy is often left out of the conversation. However, hopefully that will change thanks to Daniela Bartalesi-Graf’s efforts. Bartalesi-Graf is a lecturer at Wellesley College, and her research interests primarily focus on 20th century Italian culture. She came to the U.S. over twenty years ago, initially planning to attend graduate school to study classics. Those plans, however, were put on hold with the arrival of her child and the conclusion that studying classics and tending to a newborn would be too much to handle. Instead, she ended up deciding to spend more time delving into modern Italian culture and teaching Italian language at Wellesley College. In the process, she has written or co-authored three books and constructed a massive open online course (MOOC) for Italian language through edX Edge at Wellesley.

One of those books, Italy from Fascism to Today, traces the construction of modern Italy after WWII. Italy rarely seems to be part of the same clique as France, Germany, or Spain that remain on people’s consciousness abroad, and this is strange considering the fact that Italy faces many of the same challenges. “Italy is becoming a country of immigration– of mixed migration and immigration. A lot of immigrants are coming into Italy so Italy is becoming a multicultural, multi-religious, multi-ethnic society with people coming from Northern Africa, the sub-Saharan continent, the Middle East.”

According to Bartalesi-Graf, Italians deal with those issues slightly differently than other European nations, and it’s partially because Italy has never had the same long colonial history that other European nations have had. This in turn has affected the way that they deal with immigration. She says, “Italy is probably the country that had to adjust the quickest to this new phenomenon. Other countries because of their previous colonial powers have had immigration since the 50s. Italy had less time to adjust.”

On the other hand, she points out that in some ways, Italy’s immigrants are much more integrated than immigrants in other countries like France, where many immigrants are relegated to banlieues and are somewhat segregated. “In Italy, this doesn’t happen as much. There are mostly mixed neighborhoods. In general, you have neighborhoods, especially in the outskirts of cities, where retired Italians live, lower-class Italians, and immigrants all live together.”

This integration is certainly a unique outcome for new immigrants to a country, though Bartalesi-Graf also adds that that doesn’t mean that immigrants to Italy don’t experience challenges when they arrive. One of the biggest barriers to cultural integration for immigrants is Italians’ own pride in their native culture. “It’s a culture where there are very defined ideas about how you should eat, divide your day, what the meal times are. These are very ingrained, fixed ideas. Italians have a hard time adjusting and changing their ideas about different or possibly better ways of dealing with meals and stuff like that.”

These seemingly small cultural differences create barriers between cultures and have caused divisions between Italians and immigrants, particularly in the name of preserving culture. The country has seen inroads made by small political parties such as Lega Nord (“The Northern League”) that attempt to keep immigrants out of Italy. Lega Nord is well-known for exhibiting xenophobia and propagating hateful views, with some of their ads featuring racist caricatures. “Many Italians want to protect their culture. This movement [Lega Nord] is manipulative in many ways that plays on fears of losing jobs and the economic crisis.”

However, it’s somewhat too simplistic to say that Italians are simply racist or xenophobic like in other countries. Unlike other places around the world, Italians’ aversion to immigrants does not appear to be racially motivated. “I think it’s less racially based. For example the groups that are most discriminated against are Albanians and people from Romania. They’re not necessarily as distinguishable from Italians and they ignite some irrational fears [in Italians.]”

That fear for Italian culture is an awful shame, because as Bartalesi-Graf points out at the end of the interview, there’s a great deal to be proud of. When asked what aspects of Italian culture she is most proud of, she says, “The arts. The incredible patrimony of the arts. The richness of the arts.” Italy is not a stagnant country, and unfortunately it is often forgotten in the discussion of EU nations. But it is a country with a rich historical legacy trying to regain its footing while facing new challenges. The question that remains for Italians is how to preserve a storied past and create a future that includes more voices and experiences, and how to create a new cultural legacy. Professor Bartalesi-Graf will surely be a part of that discussion, and her work will hopefully allow people to put Italy back into a larger consciousness.

Lust and Caution

May 19, 2015Book or movie reviewrhargrov

Ang Lee’s 2007 film, Lust, Caution, received attention for a number of reasons. The number of trophies it received internationally could have sated even the most ardent trophy collector’s appetite. It also received attention for its graphic, achingly realistic ten-minute sex scene between two main characters, which reportedly took over 100 hours to shoot. People praised the movie’s elegance and the performances. But one issue with the movie is that people defined it as an espionage thriller. But that marketing choice does not address one of the most fascinating aspects of the story: the “love” story.

Lust, Caution, based on a novella by Chinese author Eileen Chang, primarily takes place from 1938 to 1942 during the Japanese occupation of Shanghai. From its trailer and synopsis, it appears to be a love story with gorgeous cinematography and period costumes, but it’s something much darker in the end. A young woman, Wong Chia Chi (Tang Wei), escapes from Shanghai to Hong Kong for safety and begins her studies at Lingnan University. There, she follows a classmate, Kuang Yu Min (Wang Leehom), into the resistance movement. Kuang, Wong Chia Chi, and a group of other students develop a plot to kill Mr. Yee (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai), the leader of the secret police of China’s puppet government propped up by the Japanese. When Mr. Yee moves to Shanghai, so does the operation. The plan is to have Wong Chia Chi pose as Mrs. Mai, seduce Mr. Yee, and have him in a position for the co-conspirators to kill him. Of course, complications arise when “Mrs. Mai” develops an emotional connection with Mr. Yee, and their twisted relationship may unravel the entire operation.

“Lust, Caution” was originally written by Eileen Chang, a prolific Chinese author. Chang’s work is marked by precise, evocative language and a deep-seated pessimism in regards to human relationships. The portraits of “love” in her works rarely feature grand romantic gestures and instead focus on people’s selfish, fickle natures and the sharp edges of emotional connections. Moreover, the world that she creates in her fiction is one that is irredeemably desolate with just enough flashes of goodness to keep despair alive when goodness does not win out.

This loyalty to the tone of the source material does this espionage thriller a world of good. Tony Leung Chiu-Wai skillfully portrays Mr. Yee’s hard, cold brutality towards Mrs. Mai. Remarkably, instead of leaving the viewer repulsed, his actions leave room for intrigue. For example, during a particularly rough sex scene between the two, despite the fact that his actions are violent and steely, by the end, the viewer gets to see just enough tenderness to understand that he is not a complete monster.

That’s because Chiu-Wai takes advantage of the small moments and actions to give his monstrous character some humanity. He doesn’t make Mr. Yee out to be an antihero; his actions make it very clear that this is a violent, self-serving man. Rather, Chiu-Wai maintains an aloofness while giving the viewer quick peeks at Mr. Yee’s humanity. This comes through the most in a scene at a jewelry shop where Mr. Yee gives Mrs. Mai a diamond ring. His tone remains flat and he doesn’t smile, but his eyes betray an affection that is so strong that one has to look away; the sudden intimacy is just that jarring.

On the other hand, a diamond ring and a doting look do not love make. In any case, it isn’t clear whether or not Mrs. Mai loves Mr. Yee. The murkiness between her role as a spy and her role as his lover constantly makes the viewer wonder who she is pretending to be, and sometimes, whether she is pretending at all. Tang Wei’s portrayal is rooted in Mrs. Mai’s portrayal in the book, and in the novella, Mrs. Mai’s character, whose perspective guides the book, is almost completely inscrutable. However, Tang Wei improves upon it by betraying slightly more emotion– enough to humanize her a bit more, but not the point where, by the movie’s end, we can say that we sincerely know her. It’s hard to even tell if Wong Chia Chi even gets lost in Mrs. Mai because we’ll never know where Wong Chia Chi begins and Mrs. Mai ends.

This question of whether we’re seeing Wong Chia Chi or Mrs. Mai is maintained by Tang Wei’s skillful performance. Like the world in Eileen Chang’s writing, the viewer gets to see just enough to remain intrigued and invested and too little to feel that they can begin to predict the character’s actions. When we see her interact with Mr. Yee, she remains cautious and affectionate and it’s difficult to tell whether it’s acting for the sake of the movement or the rather normal process of falling in love. Tang Wei gives us a character that is unknowable without being flat, and perhaps it’s because in a way, she gives us two characters who are inseparable.

That sense of the unknown in plain sight is a palpable source of tension in the film, even aesthetically. There are shadows, because what espionage thriller would be complete without them? But the movie is mostly composed of sharp details that end up creating more unease than outlines of figures in the dark. This is a period thriller composed of trench coats and stern faces, yet it’s also a relatively well-lit one that shows us banal, dull street scenes in quick cuts that leave the viewer’s heart racing. The camera work makes perfectly normal scenes and interactions feel disorienting and ominous.

Unlike conventional thrillers, the tension in Lust, Caution does not come from car chases. Its tension is rooted, in fact, more in the tradition of romantic movies. Its tension comes from the same “Will they or won’t they (kill each other)?” question that serves as the driving force of love stories. However, the movie invites another question as well, which is, “Is this love at all?”

Advocacy through Study Abroad – An Interview with Dr. Serigne Ndiaye

May 19, 2015Interview and profileErika

“This is what I do as resident director,” Dr. Serigne Ndiaye says with a little laugh when one of his teachers interrupts our interview with paperwork to sign. With a quick glance, he whisks his signature across the page. And, without skipping a beat, we’re back to talking about his work organizing study abroad in Dakar, Senegal.

“Our mission … is to help people acquire knowledge and an understanding to live in a globally interdependent world,” he says in a matter-of-fact tone that elides the current threats to study abroad enrollment in Senegal and Africa. Despite more than ten years of increased student interest, recent problems on the continent and misconceptions about Africa have gravely affected the number of American students who elect to study in this part of the world.

Ndiaye has been working as the resident director of CIEE (Council for International Educational Exchange) in Dakar, Senegal over the past 12 years. He has mediated cultural differences between his American students and his Senegalese professors for just as long. It hasn’t always been an easy journey, but one gets the sense that Ndiaye has always enjoyed the challenge. In part because of the Ebola epidemic, this past year has been particularly trying.

“There is too much hype. This semester, I tell my students that I am really proud of you. That you went beyond to break down stereotypes,” Ndiaye states as he sits up in his chair. He is an ardent proponent of cultural exchange as a necessary part of modern education. As the world has become increasingly globalized, it’s no surprise that intercultural relations are being integrated into nearly every part of our lives. He sees no reason why we can’t transcend these misconceptions.

Once an international student himself, Ndiaye did his undergraduate and graduate work at Université Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar before receiving his doctoral degree from Emory University in Atlanta. He then taught comparative and post-colonial literature at universities in the United States before taking this post in Dakar.

Asked about the challenges of his job, Ndiaye highlights his most salient concern: pernicious misconceptions and mis-education about his culture. This trend of negative stereotypes that discourage students and their advisors from exploring Senegal has been difficult for him. Ndiaye’s professorly demeanor cracks a little when he says, “What I am hoping is that people just understand Senegal or Africa is just like any other place that consists of people who … are invested in the development of their country and their continent. [Not] this wasteland like it is portrayed… [There] are people who are interested in shaping their own culture and not necessarily leaving it to others to shape it. Which has been the case throughout Africa’s history.”

Ndiaye has faith that youth activism and programs like his will encourage a generation of globally aware people to take action to change the narrative. In his recent talk at CIEE’s conference on intercultural higher education, “Cinema, Politics, and Study Abroad” highlighted the importance of confronting these preconceptions. He is no idealist, however. Ndiaye is aware that few of his students will become full-time activists. But, he knows that what they have learned while in Dakar will make them game-changers in their own way.

Edited Transcript – Interview Conducted April 9th 2015

Erika Liu: To start off, could you tell me a little bit about what you do for CIEE and what have been your experiences organizing study abroad programs?

Dr. Serigne Ndiaye: I run the whole program. [Laughs] I oversee operations in Senegal. This means making sure that everything runs smoothly and in the spirit of our mission, which is to help people acquire knowledge and an understanding to live in a globally interdependent world. My job here is to make sure that we follow that mission as best as we can.

EL: Along that mission, what do you see students taking away most from this program, beyond and including the academics?

SN: Exposure to cultural difference and the ability to absorb lessons learned in a challenging environment. I think when you are Senegal – and you might be a better position to tell me what you learned – you come out better equipped to face many challenges. You learn to be flexible. You learn to patient. You learn to find different ways to respond to difficulties. The ability to look at reality and find different options – the response isn’t just to say things aren’t going my way so I’m frustrated. Frustration doesn’t lead you very far. You have to discover the resources, the inner resources to turn things around. That is to say, turning disappointments into appointments. [Laughs] I believe that it all caused by the exposure to situations that may or may not be challenging and, also, to situations that let students pull from their inner resources to adapt. These situations of cultural discomfort can be applied to your whole lives back in the States, professional or personal. You will find a way to transcend those situations where all doors are closed. Overcome that challenge. I think whatever you did, wherever you pull your resources from, you can put that to use in new situations.

EL: What are some of the struggles or challenges you have faced as the director of CIEE Dakar and as an intercultural educator?

SN: Reconciling the reality of one culture versus another culture. Not necessarily with ease and comfort, but realizing that that has its own compromises and challenges. We always struggle with the norms of each culture. Why respect these norms? How do you convey that message of mutual respect without simply dictating the terms? For example, the same issues of security there are not the same issues here. People dramatize the things that are not a big deal here. But also, those peopsle can’t take some things lightly just because they don’t believe that it was a problem before coming to Senegal. Also, there is the challenge of keeping the balance that life does not always follow a planned schedule. The hypercontext of the U.S. way is to plan everything out and be on time. In Senegal, we are more flexible. That is a big difference in culture, which many American students struggle to learn. It is a challenge to reconcile the academic of what is outside the U.S. – in this case, in Senegal – with American students. We don’t want our professors to drop their teaching philosophy, but we want to see how to combine that with the U.S. philosophy. Mediating between the two academic cultures, we use student evaluations and create an action plan. We share the evaluation with professors. We don’t want to sacrifice what the professors believe. It is not just what we believe, but also what they believe.

EL: I’d like to visit these ideas of security later. Out of curiosity, what other kinds of feedback do you get about professors?

SN: Sometimes the feedback shows a need for more variety. More precision about assignments, deadlines and so on and so forth. In the last couple of years, things have improved tremendously. In the past, there was a lot of miscommunication.

EL: What would you say has changed to make this turnaround happen?

SN: What is changing is the professors’ need to understanding, better understanding of student expectations. Their ability to adapt to a more American system, which may or may not be a good thing. I’m withholding judgment on that. [Laughs} But, at least in terms of student satisfaction, we have made big steps towards creating a happy environment for students. For example, American students ask, “What will be on the test?” And Senegalese professors say, “Why would I tell you what would be on the test? Would it be a test?” [Laughs] That is one of the big differences between American and Senegalese education. I try to see how these two apparently conflicting views can be mediated. I also participate in trying to make each party understand what they need to do and finding that middle ground. In the US, everything seems to be measured. There, you have expectations of grades, what you are going to be tested on. Here, testing comes from the element of surprise. You have to know everything.

EL: That is very interesting, and very true. I definitely experienced this clash when I was studying abroad with CIEE. I was wondering if I could now turn the focus to something that I know you are involved in and do a lot of research on: Y’en a Marre – a media-based youth political organization that began from the controversy around Abdoulaye Wade. I remember watching their documentary, a documentary about them, in class while I was in Senegal. Why is it important for American students to see this part of Senegalese culture and media?

SN: When students come to Senegal or go abroad, and this is something that I try for more and more again, it is not necessarily to have the same experience they would have in the U.S. it is also to enrich their experiences. To help the students increase self-awareness and values of whom they are, through personal experience created by their own culture and the Senegalese culture. This is done through a better understanding of the people they interact with, the people of Senegal. The culture of Senegal. The world of Senegal. In order for them to try to make connections between their own world and the world of the people they are trying to share a space with and to understand those people better. And for me, the work that Y’en a Marre does participate in: one, breaking boundaries and two, sharing stereotypes of all the people and all the cultures in particular people from Africa. This is just one instance of the great and wonderful things that are being done on the continent by youth. And especially since our students are young people coming to Senegal who are, for the most part, also trying to make a difference. By seeing changes in their own lives they will also make changes in the world. These are ways for us to make connections.

EL: Why do you think that media, especially music and videos, are important to activism in Senegal?

SN: In Senegal, people tend to say that music is for young people, particularly rap music. The thing with music is that it transcends. Especially when the lyrics are important. In the case of Senegal, we have a population that is overwhelming young. That medium is relevant to convey messages. It is also what people use to talk about large cases of interest to the general population. So when you combine the traffic of a large part of the population – that is to say youth – with the rest of the population who may be more curious about the topics these people are discussing. They are thinking of issues of social responsibility, issues of importance to the general population. Music makes it easy to connect.

EL: Are you saying that Y’en a Marre does reach an older audience?

SN: To reach the general population, they also use all the forms. They use press conferences. They use door-to-door campaigns to sensitize people to getting involved. Music is just one aspect. They lead the way, they participate by asking, “What can we do as citizens? What can we contribute?” To all the people. They give information and access to these issues to all the citizens.

EL: Y’en a Marre started as an organization protesting a political regime, how have you seen this organization evolve?

SN: It has evolved a lot. If you look at what happened in Burkina Faso with Balai Citoyen, it is mainly the work of Burkinabe youth. There are tight connections with Y’en a Marre. Y’en a Marre folks were arrested in Democratic Republic of the Congo because they were invited by another activist group. And, the Congolese government is trying to say that these people instill instability in these countries. We can say that Y’en a Marre is spreading. They exist around the continent. It is an evolution of the activism scene. How do we make the young Africans take ownership of the future by getting involved in? It is not just a Senegalese thing, but also an African movement

EL: Do you see Y’en a Marre attracting people around the continent?

SN: It is very attractive. There is an environment where the laws of good governance are not being respected, where your future is in jeopardy and your future is not secure. You have to rebel against the status quo. These people are taking into account what has to be done. You cannot sit and stay passive and expect that your future positively. Young people have always understood this. If we believe that we are the future, they cannot sit around.

EL: Who are these young people joining Y’en a Marre?

SN: They come from all walks of life. They’re trying to create chapters around the continent and membership is free. Anyone who feels that this is his or her fight is free to join. It’s not confined to professionals or students. And maybe that membership can grow with more communication, but it is already free to join.

EL: What do you hope is conveyed about Senegal and Africa through Y’en a Marre’s programs?

SN: What I am hoping is that people just understand Senegal or Africa is just like any other place that consists of people who want something for their countries, for themselves, for their families. They are invested in the development of their country and their continent. Senegal or Africa is not this wasteland like it is portrayed. It is a way for them to convey a realistic message of what it is: A continent of people who have their struggles, just like any other people. If it helps break down stereotypes, not idealize anything. To look at the picture and realize that there are people who are interested in shaping their own culture and not necessarily leaving it to others to shape it. Which has been the case throughout Africa’s history. Y’en a Marre represents the conviction that Africa should be built by African through their beliefs in their own values.

EL: What do you hope that students take away from learning about Y’en a Marre?

SN: Every context is different. Y’en a Marre fights in a struggle depending on the context in which they live. I am not suggesting that students in this program will be activists just like Y’en a Marre, no. I’m trying to say how people can really identify with a cause in life. And understand what their mission and pursue that mission. It does not have to be in field of political activism. It can be in the field of personal activism. It is getting in touch with what is important to us. That is what we try to do and we don’t want everyone just to follow examples. I don’t think that every student will become an activist. But, you are all leaders – maybe not leaders of politics but leaders in your personal lives. I hope students will understand the level of commitment that it takes to exact change in the world. These youth are in the same position, wanting to change their lives and they change the world. Direct impact on how the world is shaped.

EL: I would like to end this interview asking a few questions about the recent Ebola crisis that has touched West Africa, not so much in Senegal directly, but in its media. I watched Y’en a Marre’s video on YouTube. Could you tell me more about how Senegalese media has responded to this crisis?

SN: I think the Senegalese media acted as well and as properly as they could. At some point, it seemed to me that we had just let it all go to Western media to have a monopoly over the kind of information that is on display. I think that it is very sad when we know that there were specialists here who were working on finding a cure in collaboration with maybe the CDC or other research facilities in the West. But, more people put emphasis on the crisis and not enough focus on what is being done – not necessarily from the other side of the Atlantic – but from here. There are researchers and doctors, people who have done tremendous work to curb this crisis, but they are not portrayed as doing very much. This crisis did not go to show, in terms of media coverage, that Africa is not a country. For people who don’t have a great sense of geography, it is hard to understand the difference between Dakar and Cape Town. It takes longer for a person to travel from Dakar to Cape Town than it does for them to go from Dakar to Washington D.C. For them to not know, it is on our government to be as aggressive as possible to work with various partners to show that yes, this is a safe place to live in regardless of what the Western media is saying. Universities are very cautious. They did not believe it was safe to send students to Africa. As much as people love their lives, we love our lives as well. I would not put the lives of those I am responsible of in danger. Overall, there is too much hype. We haven’t taken much time to think about the reality of it. This semester, I tell my students that I am really proud of you. That you went beyond to break down stereotypes. If things would to happen, we are ready to respond. Of course, we, ourselves, try to live as safely as possible.

EL: Does Y’en a Marre portray a correct or popular opinion of the Ebola crisis? Their video is educational as well as political.

SN: Of course, that is a part of their mission too. It is a part of their educational mission for them to do what people need to understand. There are some people who don’t understand, there are people who don’t have access to schools and education. So, no educational media is superfluous. This is done by the TV stations. This is done by Y’en a Marre. This is done by mosques and in churches. This done by community orgs, there is a lot that does not get shared with the rest of the world. People are not reckless. People understand what is going on and what is going to help. Y’en a Marre is one of many initiatives done by African people all around to help with the situation.

Miao Zhe: a Multifaceted Art Historian

May 18, 2015Interview and profileby Ningyi Xinxi

In a society obsessed with specialization, Miao Zhe steers a course through multiple disciplines. A writer, translator, and art historian, he is currently the Director of Art and Archaeology Research Center at Zhejiang University, overseeing the new art history program as well as the school’s teaching art museum, the first of its kind in China. Despite these weighty titles, Miao is very approachable – he found time from his busy schedule to accept my last-minute interview request.

Miao gave an insightful and articulate answer to each of my questions. This is perhaps a natural result of his mastery of language and experience in the fields of art history and museum studies. His speech reflects the same kind of logic and clarity found in his writing. He spoke unhurriedly, taking the time to formulate his responses, and articulated his thoughts in a coherent way with very few filler words. During our conversation, which was in Chinese, he would occasionally use an English word to express a concept that has no real equivalent in Chinese.

At a time when every dabbler self-brands as “expert” or “genius”, Miao attributes most of what he has done to curiosity and serendipity. He commented on his transition from one profession to the next saying that “what I am doing today is not really a result of planning… Back in our time,” he continued, “everything was handled by the state, what you studied in school, what job you would be assigned to, so we developed this habit of not planning for ourselves and only moving along depending on occasions.” One thing, however, has remained constant. “I just always like reading, not for any particular purpose, just for the pleasure of reading.”

Although Miao spoke modestly about himself and his works, many of his observations and insights are wonderfully astute and illuminating, and I find myself ruminating on them as I navigate through my art history coursework. For example, he listed some reasons why training in art history can be useful even for people who are not going to pursue it as a scholarly interest. First, it trains your ability to observe things closely; second, it develops your skills in turning non-linguistic observation and visual thinking into language, a difficult task, and one that takes practice.

Asked about the importance of material culture, Miao emphasized that both documents and objects are indispensible to a comprehensive understanding of a civilization. Documents are important, he said, but they record things selectively and often don’t talk about the manufacturing of objects, so unless we study material culture alongside documents, our knowledge of a civilization will be incomplete. At the same time, in order to understand an object becomingly, we need to be able to imagine living in that era and have a common sense of the object’s context, and documents are instrumental in providing this kind of vicarious experience.

While his research focuses on early Chinese art, Miao approaches the discipline of art history as an ardent proponent of multiculturalism. He pointed out that most Chinese museums do not seek to collect objects from outside China, which is “not a healthy phenomenon” and reveals a lack of interest and curiosity in other cultures. Miao believes that there isn’t “a fixed, static Chinese tradition from the beginning of time.” The shapes and characteristics of civilizations, he said, are always changing as a result of contact with other civilizations: “If we want to keep the dynamism, we should keep the tradition of contact and exchange.” In fact, the museum at Zhejiang University, the brainchild of Miao and his colleagues, will be the first in China to have a major collection of objects from a multitude of cultures, and the university’s new art history program will seek to bring in perspectives and methodologies from abroad. Or maybe we should stop constructing a rigid line between Chinese and non-Chinese, between foreign and native, and stop being paranoid about who will dominate the conversation. As Miao pointed out, different methods and opinions resulting from different cultural backgrounds do not entail competition between nations. Research in art history is and should remain a matter of scholarly interest.

Edited Transcript

Via Skype. Tuesday, May 5th, 2015, EDT.

In Chinese. Translation by Ningyi Xi.

Ningyi: I’ve heard a lot of people raving about the art museum under construction in Zhejiang University which will use an entire system of art history pedagogy from western institutions. In the meantime, I feel that, in China, a lot of resurgence of interest in Chinese art and culture involves nationalistic sentiments. I am curious why, under the wave of nationalism in China, Zhejiang University decided to open an art history department and art museum adopting a western model?

Miao Zhe: There are people who have a nationalistic point of view, but there are also advocates of multiculturalism. Different people make different choices. As for Zhejiang University’s program, first, we respect traditional Chinese culture, even more than the nationalists. It’s just our point of view is different. We think that the Chinese tradition is dynamic. There isn’t a fixed, static Chinese tradition from the beginning of time. The shape and characteristics of the tradition are always changing as a result of contact with other civilizations. If we want to keep the dynamism, we should keep the tradition of contact and exchange. We respect traditional Chinese cultures. We are just nationalists.

Ningyi: I also sense some nationalistic sentiments in some media’s coverage of the conference you organized on paintings from Song Dynasty. Some lamented that, out of the twelve presenters, seven work in institutions outside China, and the conversation on paintings of Song Dynasty might one day be dominated by foreigners.

Miao Zhe: If you think of Art history as a subject, it is a German invention. The Chinese have our opinions and methods, but as a modern intellectual discipline, art history started in Germany. Art history as an academic subject first established itself in the West and came to China very late. The first people to use academic methods to study Chinese art were Western scholars. Since paintings from Song Dynasty have a symbolic status in Chinese art history, many concentrate their studies on this period, much like Renaissance in Western art history. Many people do research in this field, including Professor Wen Fong. Their achievement in this field is a result of history. Whereas in China there haven’t been so many studies, and museums do not provide convenient services to scholars, so the status of research is not as advanced. It is a result of history. For sure, the status quo is not ideal, because after all the civilization was produced in China, and Chinese scholars should have stronger expertise. So it is not a question of who dominates the conversation. It is something that Chinese should feel embarrassed about. In China, in the past few years, people started to realize the importance of these paintings, and more people are entering the field.

I think competition between scholars does not involve competition on the national level. It doesn’t matter if you are from the US or from Japan. You are an individual scholar.

Ningyi: So it should all be intellectual debate, not competition between nations?

Miao Zhe: Yes, at least that’s my view and my colleagues. Of course, due to different cultural backgrounds, the methods will be different. But that doesn’t mean there is competition between nations. It’s all up to individual scholars. This is our view. Some people might not think so.

Ningyi: About the method of teaching art using real objects, I feel that it is not just art education is that is lacking direct engagement with objects, but also in subjects like history and other domains.

Miao Zhe: Yes, I think so. When we talk about history and heritage of civilizations, there are two kinds. One is written documents recording activities. The other is objects, the actual products of the activities, cities, architecture, decoration, paintings. In Chinese universities, not so many people are aware that material culture is a big component of civilisation. So when we teach, we teach more with the written documents. Then how do you obtain a comprehensive understanding of the civilization? Without the actual objects, it is hard to do. That’s the major goal of this museum, to make the studies of material culture more comprehensive and more accurate, to fill the missing half. Of course, this approach is relatively new.

Western institutions are better at this. Just look at their textbooks. Art history, needless to say, is all about objects. History, too, is different from our approach.

Ningyi: Yes this I feel a lot. History class in the US is very big on primary sources. In China, it’s always just a summary of events in a few sentences.

Miao Zhe: Right. Documents are important. Without documents, we wouldn’t be able to build a framework for historical narratives. But they are not all, because things are recorded selectively. And most of the time documents do not record the manufacturing of objects.

Ningyi: With the museum there is also a new art history program. Even in the US where there is big emphasis on liberal arts education, enrollment in art history is declining. In China where the education has an even bigger focus on the practicality of things, how do you envision the student body of art history?

Miao Zhe: We are building the art history department for the teaching of art history. The department teaches art history, and the museum is a tool to teach it. As for the recipients of the education, most of the students will be those who are not going to pursue art history as their subject of study. It’s part of the liberal arts education for undergraduate students at Zhejiang University. At the same time, we also need to train future scholars of the field, so we will recruit art history majors as well. Probably not that many, perhaps a dozen a year. Many courses will be intro-level courses for those who will go on to be engineers, doctors, bankers, to offer them a liberal arts education. Practicality is not our concern here. We don’t expect too many people to choose art history as a major. There aren’t many jobs for art history majors.

Ningyi: (laugh) My art history professor always says that art history is a useful major. (laugh) The skills can be applied anywhere.

Miao Zhe: The training is useful for sure. But there is a job market out there, and we don’t know how you will do with a degree in art history in the market. It trains your ability to observe, because you need to observe things closely. And second, it develops your ability of thinking. What does that mean? If you study philosophy, you will know that objects are non-linguistic. To turn your observation into language is difficult. To process written documents is less work, because words already contain thoughts. To translate your reaction to words into words is not that difficult. But to turn your observation and visual thinking into language is difficult, because it involves a shift, a jump between different cognitive systems. So art history is good training on your observation skills and your ability to express non-linguistic things that are difficult to convey. As for the job market, who knows.

Ningyi: (laugh) Right. Are there museums in China that you think are doing well? How do museums in China compare to those outside China?

Miao Zhe: Most museums in China are more or less similar. Some are better than others. The biggest characteristic is that they only have objects of Chinese civilization, from the Palace Museum to Shanghai Museum to smaller local museums. That is not good. If you go to Japan, you will see that Japanese museums are so much more multicultural. The Palace Museum is starting to collect non-Chinese Asian art. But in general, in mainland China, from museums to collectors, no one is really interested in non-Chinese art. That’s not a healthy phenomenon, and it also shows that the mentality in China has a few problems.

If we are not talking about the scope and interest of the collection, Shanghai Museum does a good job. They are more professional at administration and exhibition.

Chinese museums have two shortcomings, one is that their interest is solely on China. Second, there is not much research behind exhibitions. They organize exhibitions according to occasions, but they don’t dig deep into the collection or update scholarly research.

Ningyi: The problematic mentality you are talking about, is it the kind of nativist and isolationist mentality?

Miao Zhe: Yes, but it’s different from the total isolation in Qing Dynasty. Now they are interested in foreign business and commerce, but not so much in learning about other cultures. There isn’t much curiosity in other cultures.

We’re actually the first museum in China to collect objects of a multitude of cultures.

Ningyi: Richard Barnhart said that when he saw Song paintings the first time he decided to go into the field, were there any artworks that touched you so deeply?

Miao Zhe: No (laugh). My interest in art history is more from a historical perspective, not aesthetic.

Ningyi: Do you still start with documents when you do research?

Miao Zhe: Not start with documents. We’re dealing with objects after all. But I always think that, in order to understand an object produced in a specific period of time, to understand it becomingly, you need to be able to imagine the time period, as if you lived then. And then you can develop an accurate understanding of the objects in order to analyze or critique it. How do we imagine the time period as if we lived then? Apart from looking at objects to get the feeling, you also need to rely on the written documents and the activities they describe and understand them really thoroughly. Then you will know what is possible, what is impossible back then, and develop a common sense of the era. Only documents can enable you to get a sense of that, because they record how people felt back then, how they thought, how they reacted to the surroundings. If you can get a grasp of that knowledge, you are no longer an outsider to the artwork and its world. You will understand it as if you lived in the era.

That’s where the significance of documents lies. They don’t necessarily have any direct links to the objects we are talking about. There are very few of those, especially in early period.

Ningyi: I read your other interview where you said that you ended up doing many things by accident. Was there anything that you planned? Or anything planned for the future?

Miao Zhe: A lot planned for the future. The past was a completely different time from now. You guys have so much more freedom. You can plan for the future. Back in our time, everything was handled by the state, what you studied in school, what job you would be assigned to. So we developed this habit of not planning for ourselves, and only move along depending on occasions (laugh). It’s very different from today. So what I am doing today is not really a result of planning. I just always like reading, not for any particular purpose, just for the pleasure of reading. I do have some plans for the future, to build the museum, start the art history department, develop the library, and I have some research projects. Many things depend on opportunities.

Yuan Ming Yuan: a Monument to Nationalism

May 15, 2015Book or movie reviewby Ningyi Xinxi

“Imagine some inexpressible construction, something like a lunar building, and you will have the Summer Palace. Build a dream with marble, jade, bronze and porcelain, frame it with cedar wood, cover it with precious stones, drape it with silk, make it here a sanctuary, there a harem, elsewhere a citadel, put gods there, and monsters, varnish it, enamel it, gild it, paint it…”

Jin Tiemu’s documentary Yuan Ming Yuan (2006) opens with this lyrical description of the titular Summer Palace, penned by Victor Hugo in the nineteenth century. The film illustrates the palace’s life and death, which parallels the destiny of Qing Dynasty, the last imperial dynasty of China. Located in the northwest of Beijing, Yuan Ming Yuan was the brainchild of three generations of emperors in the heyday of the Qing Empire. It is said to have been the apogee of Chinese architecture and landscape, encompassing not only architectural elements from all around China but also from the West. While a token of pride, Yuan Ming Yuan is also remembered as a symbol of humiliation in Chinese history. The palace was looted and destroyed by the Anglo-French Allied Forces in 1860, as the Qing Empire declined in the face of peasant uprisings and foreign invasion.

The film’s digital reconstruction of the Summer Palace is mind-blowing both in scale and in detail, and the reenactment of historical characters allows the viewer a vicarious experience of life inside the imperial palace. But as the Chinese saying goes, the documentary flowers but bears no fruit, hua er bu shi. Despite its beautiful images, Yuan Ming Yuan does not encourage serious reflection on the past. Instead, it’s little more than a superficial portrayal of historical events that omits many important details and taps into anti-Western and China-resurgence mentalities.

To use Victor Hugo’s words, aesthetically Jin’s team did “build a dream” with the documentary, which took more than six years and a million dollars to make. Thirty-five minutes of the total running time is allotted to digital reconstruction of Yuan Ming Yuan’s landscape and architecture. Exquisite visual effects, such as the lustre of the famous bronze animal sculptures and the panorama of the entire complex of gardens and palaces at sunset, are indeed a feast for the eyes.

Even better, the film does not stop at Yuan Ming Yuan’s aesthetic splendor but provides a glimpse into the life of people who lived there, giving history a human quality. Part of the film is narrated by three European missionaries who work for the royal court and explore the palace with curiosity and admiration. They tell anecdotes of court life, which transform historical figures into lively individuals with whom the audience can empathize. For example, there is a mock town inside the palace where eunuchs play the roles of vendors, magistrates, craftsmen, and even thieves, so that the royal family can get a taste of an ordinary person’s life by visiting the mock market, bargaining with merchants, witnessing theft, and even participating in mock courts to interrogate thieves.

Unfortunately, this level of detail is not carried over when the film transitions to the decline of Yuan Ming Yuan in the hands of foreign invaders. The second part of the film sets up a dichotomy of innocent but close-minded Chinese with primitive weapons against evil-minded aggressive Western imperialists with advanced weapons. Without any in-depth analysis, the documentary is only a fancy repetition of my elementary school history lesson on Yuan Ming Yuan. It tells only a partial truth that aims to promote nationalistic sentiments among its audience, most of whom are Chinese.

Instead of anatomizing France’s and England’s imperialism and examining the root causes for the invasion, the film focuses on visualizing the Qing court’s lack of militarism and the calamity it suffers as a result. We hear the narrator lamenting about the absence of development in Chinese weapons and see repeated scenes of brutally wounded Chinese soldiers falling from their horses. In other words, Yuan Ming Yuan aims not to make the viewers understand why the tragedy took place but only to leave them gnashing their teeth in anger because foreign invaders destroyed this other-worldly beauty in China. The film plays into the larger trend of nationalistic narrative of history: China was bullied by Western powers because it was weak, and now it must reemerge as a strong power so as not to be bullied again.

The documentary also completely demonizes the English and French soldiers. From their first appearance, the soldiers all look vicious and frantic, walking with hunched backs and sinister smiles. Both the French and the English commanders look like your typical comic book villains, one with a poker-face, the other with an evil grin. Yes, in a way, they were demons for having destroyed such a treasure of human history. But at the same time, it should not be forgotten that they, too, were ordinary human beings who couldn’t resist the temptation of carrying off war trophies that later turned into a looting frenzy. It is simply unnecessary and dishonest to take all human qualities out of them for dramatic effects.

Worse, the film deliberately omits an important fact that contributed to the destruction of the palace: the Qing government kidnapped and tortured members of the Anglo-French Forces’ negotiation team. Twenty-one out of the thirty-nine kidnapped men died in prison, including Thomas Bowlby, a reporter of the Times of London and a close friend of the English commander Lord Elgin. Shocked by the death of his good friend and the other men and worried about his reputation if he were to do nothing to avenge their murder, Elgin ordered his men to destroy the palace as retribution against the Qing government, despite objections from the French side. The atrocity by the Qing court in no way justified Elgin’s ruthless decision, but, at least, he was certainly not the capricious and lunatic character in the documentary who decides to destroy the palace out of the blue and with unanimous support from the Anglo-French Forces.

Yuan Ming Yuan takes the easy path of presenting the tragedy as a tale of mindless savages from the West plundering Chinese civilization, when the real story was much more complicated. If the Summer Palace is going to be turned into a monument to anything, it should not be one to nationalism. Instead, memories of Yuan Ming Yuan should stand as a reminder of human beings’ capacity both to create extraordinary beauty with their wisdom and to destroy such beauty under the spell of morbid ideologies.

Letter to the Editor

May 15, 2015Letter to the editorby Ningyi Xinxi

Re: “A Tragedy that Highlights Kids’ Plight” (04/03/2015) by Xiao Lixin

Xiao Lixin’s Op-Ed identifies the plight of Chinese children and urges teachers and parents to relieve their pressure. But he fails to see that, while the enormous pressure from school is the underlying problem, the major cause for this particular tragedy was the adults’ disregard for the child’s emotional needs.

Most Chinese parents are used to scolding, taunting, and making fun of their kids without even thinking that these actions can traumatize the young minds. Adults seem to forget that when they were children they too wanted to be respected and understood. Once people become old enough to have authority over the younger generation, they start to depersonalize children, doing just as their elders did to them. Even at school, where educators should know better than parents, berating and public shaming still remain in the repertoire of teachers who want to make their students behave.

I wonder what the 11 year-old was feeling when the teacher asked her parents to bring her home to finish homework. The headmaster said that no one thought the girl would take any drastic action, since the teacher and the parents “communicated in a friendly manner.” But the young girl’s emotional state was not mentioned. Nor would the adults have paid any attention. To them, she was simply being difficult.

Chinese adults must break this habit if they want to prevent more tragedies from happening. They should actively seek to recognize and understand children’s emotional needs instead of treating them as non-existent. The tragedy in Hangzhou will hopefully serve as a reminder to all teachers and parents that children’s minds are not computer disks that can be formatted again and again after being hurt. Their delicate hearts should be treated with respect and care.

Jay Rubin: A Career in Translation

May 13, 2015Interview and profileby Katherine Jordankjordan2

Haruki Murakami, a contemporary author from Japan, is lauded for being translated into over 50 languages. This number is bandied about to show his worldwide popularity, but behind each of his foreign publications is a translator’s endeavor to recreate that work in a new language. Jay Rubin is one of those translators, bringing the music of Murakami’s words to the English speaking world.

Born in 1941, Rubin is an Emeritus Professor of Japanese Literature at Harvard University. He began studying Japanese entirely by chance in his sophomore year at the University of Chicago and was hooked. “I just found it pretty exciting,” he told me during our interview in April. “I still do.” After receiving his Ph.D. in Japanese Literature from the same university, Rubin went on to work as a professor of Japanese at the University of Washington and at Harvard University. It was during this time that he was introduced to Murakami’s work and as he put it, “pretty much got obsessed with Murakami for…fifteen or twenty years.”

The first work of Murakami’s that Rubin translated was the now-famous The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. At more than 600 pages, it took Rubin two years to translate. Author and translator met at the end of the process, and Rubin regretted waiting until then to ask all of his questions. “I saw [Murakami] in Tokyo,” Rubin recalls, “and we spent the entire day just going through these nitpicky little things and he was groaning at the end. We got through it but it was not fun.” Since then, Rubin has always just emailed Murakami his questions as he encounters them, though generally he receives “Do whatever works!” as the very trusting standard reply.

Rubin is best known for translating Murakami’s works, but he has also worked on traditional, long-dead literary figures like Ryūnosuke Akutagawa and Natsume Sōseki. These scholarly translations are very different from those Rubin has done of his contemporary Murakami, dotted as they are with footnotes and other academic paraphernalia. It’s because, Rubin pretends to complain, that unlike Murakami, Sōseki won’t answer any of his emails.

Now retired from teaching, Rubin still deals with the publishing industry, though from the new point of view of an author. His debut novel, The Sun Gods, will be published later this month. The story follows a Japanese mother and her adopted American son during the WWII incarceration of Japanese and Japanese-Americans. When I asked what made him want to write a book, he replied, “I think everybody who works on literature academically secretly wants to write a book. Don’t you?”

Jay Rubin Interview – Edited Transcript

Via Skype; April 6, 2015 4:30 pm. Duration 40 minutes.

KJ: Well, thank you so much for agreeing to talk with me. This is really, I’m absolutely thrilled.

JR: (laughs)

KJ: No, I’m serious! I’m a current student at Wellesley College. I’m a senior so I’m graduating in a couple of months now, and I’m a French and Japanese major and last semester I took two courses on translation, one in French and one in Japanese, and so, I kind of wanted to talk to you from a translation point of view.

JR: Okay. How far back do your two languages go? Did you grow up with one of those languages or, uh, you’ve got two languages that you’re working seriously in.

KJ: Yes. I’ve been learning French for a while. I started learning French when I was five…

JR: Wow.

KJ: …and I’ve been learning it pretty consistently since then.

JR: Great. When did you start Japanese?

KJ: In college, actually. So four years ago now.

JR: Nice.

KJ: Yeah. My Japanese still isn’t the greatest but I’m working on it.

JR: Welcome to the club.

KJ: (Laughs) So, when do you start learning Japanese?

JR: In college. I was second year, I think. Second year I took—oh no, I took a course during my second year in Literature and Translation and then started studying that summer.

KJ: What drew you to Japanese? I’m just curious. Like there’s a bunch of languages…

JR: Total chance. Just total chance. I happened to take a course. I wanted to take a course in something non-Western. Edwin McClellan was teaching – this was at the University of Chicago – he was teaching a course in Introduction to Japanese Literature, and if it had been Chinese history I might have…Who knows what I would have done. He made the language sound interesting and of course I had never done anything with Japanese language. I just found it all pretty exciting. I still do.

KJ: Had you learned any other languages before then? Like, when I started learning Japanese, I had a background in French.

JR: Well, I was pretty serious about German for a while but I had let that go for a year or so. I was kind of missing working in foreign language. And that was part of the motivation, was to get into a situation where you have to use your brain for thinking in another language. It was exciting.

KJ: Yup. I definitely agree with you there. So, was this course the reason why you also became interested in translation work? Or…Where did that interest come from?

JR: Oh, well. Do you know that name, Edwin McClellan?

KJ: Not particularly. It sounds familiar but I wouldn’t be able to tell you where I knew it from.

JR: If you’ve read any Sōseki in translation – you’ve probably read his Kokoro translation?

KJ: I haven’t.

JR: His Michikusa translation?

KJ: No, I haven’t read any Sōseki yet. I’m looking forward to reading I am a cat. I will be reading that over the summer.

JR: Are you going to read it in Japanese or English?

KJ: English.

JR: Yeah, well. Good luck with that. Keep the Japanese text close by, cause it’s really, basically an untranslatable book.

KJ: Oh, is it? Okay. I’m looking forward to reading it though. One of my friends recommended it to me. But I feel like I need to read it along with a textbook or something that explains more about the period because it’s really a critique of that era. But anyway, that’s a summer project of mine after graduation. When I have a bit more free time again.

JR: So what level – you say you took a translation course in Japanese?

KJ: Yes. It was actually one of Professor Zimmerman’s courses. We read some original works in Japanese, or excerpts of them, and then every week we had to translate only about a page or so, two pages, in English. So after taking that course, I got much more interested in translation than I had ever been before, and this semester I’m doing an independent study where I’m trying to translate all 60 pages of Tsushima Yuuko’s story “Fusehime.”

JR: Oh yes, you mentioned that. Right, right. It must have something to do with Hakkeden, doesn’t it?

KJ: Only as an allusion. Only in the title and the fact that dogs are a fairly recurring motif. I haven’t finished doing a close reading of the story yet. I read the story in its entirety over winter break without a dictionary –

JR: (Laughs)

KJ: – so I have a general gist of how things go, but there were definitely some points that I got completely wrong. And now as I’m doing my first draft translation I’m rereading it and getting a much more accurate accounting of events and what’s going on.

JR: Hmm, sure. Nothing like really bearing down and getting every word, especially in a foreign language.

KJ: Yeah.

JR: So, what sort of things did you want to ask me about, talk to me about?

KJ: Just kind of your methodology and philosophy towards translation. So, for example, when you have a language like Japanese that is so completely different from English, unlike French, you can’t really do a translation that adheres closely to the original. Sentence structure inherently has to change. So how do you manage to stay true to the original and keep that kind of integrity of the text while also translating it into a foreign language, and what do you consider to be the artistic license of the translator? So to speak.

JR: Have you ever tried to compare any of my translations to the original text?

KJ: I have not.

JR: But you’re assuming that I am maintaining fidelity to the original –

KJ: Not actually, no. And that’s part of why I wanted to ask you this question. I know that in Wind Up Bird Chronicle, you ended up rearranging a couple of things and taking out a couple of things. So that’s why I wanted to know what’s the governing philosophy when it comes to translation.

JR: The governing philosophy in that case was Knopf’s desire to make money. Alfred A. Knopf had become Murakami’s publisher. They were definitely behind him in that early stage of his career. But, one editor in particular, a guy named Gary Fisketjon – have you come across that name? Gary Fisketjon.

KJ: No.

JR: I mention him in my Music of Words book. In fact, he’s got some of the last comments in the book. I think the very last comments in the book are by him. He, or maybe he along with some of the other people in the company, decided that they couldn’t profitably sell a book as long as The Wind Up Bird Chronicle for a writer as, as unknown still as Murakami was and they simply said, “It has to be 25,000 words shorter.” I got very worried that they were going to hand it to an editor who was going to just chop it up any old way. I didn’t want that to happen, so I took it on myself to decide what I thought should come out of the book. It had to come out. They were insisting on it.

I suppose I could have insisted upon artistic integrity and they would have simply gone ahead and had an editor cut the book instead of having me cut it. That was the primary motivation to mess around with Murakami in that case. Simply a matter of practicality. When you’re dealing with writers who are not classic figures, who are living, who are being published as living writers, you get involved with the messy business of publication and profits. I don’t have to deal with the profits, but of course I have to deal with the company that’s concerned about such things.

KJ: Is it really different to translate a work, for example like Murakami’s, that is being marketed for general public reading versus something like Sōseki where it’s much more of an academic audience?

JR: Absolutely. You look at my translations of Akutagawa – have you that book, Rashōmon and Seventeen Other Stories?

KJ: Uh-huh, I’ve read a couple of those.

JR: Well, you probably noticed that they were full of footnotes and I couldn’t put footnotes in the New Yorker and they certainly didn’t want footnotes in a book by Knopf. They tried to make it appear as seamless as possible in transfer from Japanese to English. So, again, it’s a question of house style, of whether they want academic paraphernalia attached to their text. And they tend not to. I always found that a challenge and rather exciting, to try to make, to get across as much of the text as possible without any footnotes, without stepping outside the text and telling the reader what to think. Which ends up making, encouraging you to secretly footnote the text. You pad a little here and there, you tell the reader what a fusuma is or whatever it happens to be. Fortunately with Murakami there’s not a lot of that. There aren’t that many Japanese cultural artifacts that you have to get inventive about.

KJ: Yeah, I noticed that, reading him.

JR: So it’s quite a different thing. When, say, when I was translating Sōseki’s Sanshirō, I would point out inconsistencies. There was one point where Sanshirō is a tall young man, and then a few chapters later he goes to the public baths with his professor and they talk about how short he is. And in a classic book, you make a footnote: “Notice that Sōseki forgot himself here.” You don’t do that with Murakami. You go to the author himself: “Make up your mind. Do you want him to be short or do you want him to be tall?”

KJ: (Laughs).

JR: I couldn’t do that with Sōseki because he wouldn’t answer any of my emails.

KJ: (Laughs). Yeah, kind of hard when you’re dead. So did you consult with Murakami a lot when translating his works or was it more of a kind of ‘you did your best and then at the very end you presented it to him with a couple of questions’?

JR: Ah, well, the first novel of his that I translated was The Wind Up Bird Chronicle and I did the saving up the questions until the end and both of us were very sorry I did that. It was just so much to go through. You know, I saw him in Tokyo and we spent the entire day just through these nitpicky little things and he was groaning at the end. We got through it but it was not fun. No, ever since then, I ‘ve just simply emailed him about one question or another. If there’s a sentence I don’t understand, I write to him and say, “Well, in this particular case, this sentence could either, it could be either first person or third person, you know, because it just sort of floats somewhere between the two. Which do you prefer?” And his answer is, “Whatever works! Do whatever works. 適当にやってください。[tekitou ni yatte kudasai; please do as you see fit.]” is his standard response.

Somebody, something I read recently quoted him as saying, “Sometimes my translators ask me questions about the meaning of the text. Very often I don’t know what the meaning is myself.” And that’s not really commonly the case with Murakami. He’s a very lucid writer and he thinks about what he writes but, there are passages where you really can’t be 100% sure. I have my wife to help me too. She’s a native Japanese, so I have that resource which is useful to a point. But finally, if the text itself is dense or opaque, I ask him. And then he says, “Gee, I’m really not sure what I was getting at here. Make it say whatever works.”

KJ: So you take a lot of translator’s license with the Murakami texts?

JR: Not a lot. There aren’t that many passages like that so you have to do that once in a while. No, I say for the most part, you know you’ve got a lot of different translators working on Murakami and I think he comes through not that different between one translator and another. You know, there’s still that Murakami voice that makes it through. There aren’t that many…you know, because the text is basically pretty straight forward. The language is fundamentally simple. So it’s just in a rare case he’ll leave something a little vague or, say, put something in a way that isn’t that obvious. So I’ll ask him about it. But it doesn’t happen that often.

KJ: Okay. And then, something else I was curious about was – so I actually did read your book on Murakami, The Music of Words, and you mentioned in it how word-processing and computers really, they kind of changed Murakami’s way of writing in that it opened up a lot of possibilities for him and he really enjoyed having a computer instead of having to write by hand or anything like that. And I was wondering if the same was true for translating work. What sort of methodology do you use? Do you just sit down with an electronic document like Word, and just translate from one document to the next? Or do you prefer having a hard copy? Electronic dictionaries versus paper dictionaries? That kind of thing. How has modern technology changed your way of working with translation?

JR: I remember when I first started using computers that I felt really liberated from the typewriter. I was never able to compose on a typewriter. I just could not. Everything I wrote up until 1985, I wrote on yellow, legal sized yellow pads. I just couldn’t get my fingers to work and get my head to work at the same time. So I would invariably write in English, I mean write in longhand, revise in longhand, make, you know, all these messy things on the page. Then, then, input into the typewriter, type it up. When I started using the computer to write on, I just loved it because I didn’t have to – you know, you don’t have the white stuff?

KJ: The white out?

JR: The white out. You can put it on the screen, but then you realize it’s on the wrong thing. You white out something on the screen because the text moves up. So it was very liberating to be able to write on a keyboard because you don’t have to worry about mistakes. Mistakes; you’ll see them and you can fix them, later. So, I really enjoyed that. I did at first though, as I remember, finish a translation, print it, revise it on paper with a pencil then go back to the electronic text and put in all the corrections that way. I haven’t done that for a long time though. After a while, I simply got so used to working with a computer that I don’t have any trouble just doing the whole process on the computer. In fact, I kind of hate to print things out now. (Laughs). Until the very end, if ever.

KJ: Do you have the Japanese text on the computer too or is that still hard copy?

JR: That depends. If I’m translating something that Murakami has sent me, if he has sent me the electronic text of a story, then I’ll – well, although I don’t split the screen, I write – I’ll do it paragraph by paragraph. I’ll input the English right on the same page as the Japanese then alternate paragraphs that way so that it’s all in one big messy file. So that it makes it very easy to go back and revise and you know continually compare. It also makes it easy to use my electronic kenkyūsha because you just, if it’s a word you don’t even know the reading of, you can just copy it off the electronic text and put it into the kenkyūsha. It gives you the reading and it gives you the meanings. I haven’t used a paper dictionary for a long time. Come to think of it, I got a kenkyūsha, an electronic dictionary, oh god, it must be – when did they come out? Eight or ten years ago? I’m not sure when they came out but that was another wonderful advance. So I’m very much into enjoying all the advantages of the digital age. For sure.

KJ: I was just curious because ever since I’ve started studying Japanese basically, we’ve always had electronic dictionaries, the ability to copy and paste kanji if you don’t know the reading and stuff like that. And, for example, when I’m working on translating “Fusehime,” I do a split screen within a word document. So I have the Japanese on one side and the English on another. But I was just wondering if everyone did that, or if that was just me.

JR: No, I’d say it’s great to be able to do that kind of thing. And also, it gives you the advantage of being able to continue to refer to the original text even when you’re getting fairly late in the revising process. I remember in the old days, I had heard that Ed Seidensticker would translate his text into a kind of Japlish, you know, translate it into a very awkward and clumsy English, at first. Then, he would get rid of the original text and fix it all up and work on it strictly as an English text. I could never work that way. I always wanted to have access to the original text, right to the very end. Yeah, that’s really good to be able to do that on a split screen. Most of these longer books, I mean like translating 1Q84, I was doing it out of a paper text.

KJ: Oh really? Out of paper?

JR: Yeah. I didn’t have 1Q84 in a Japanese electronic file. I had that just as a book. Gee, when I got started with that, I think I was working from galleys. Translating his stuff started before it was published. So [Murakami] had the editor send me galleys.

KJ: Oh wow. So –

JR: And I’m sure he’s doing that with Phil Gabriel and Ted Goossen, the people who are mostly translating him now.

KJ: Uh-huh. So when you translated, or started to translate Wind Up Bird Chronicle, was that from galleys too?

JR: That was from galleys of the magazine in which it was originally serialized. That was really a clumsy process because he serialized the whole first volume of that book in, I don’t know what it was. Gunzō, or some, one of those literary journals. It was over several months’ time that he was serializing that book and I remember that really became a hardship because once he got it into a full-length volume, he did a lot of changing and I had to go back [and revise] since I got started on the text while he was still writing it, even before it came out in the magazine. There were a few changes as it got into the magazine. Then, when he published the book, he did a lot of changing. Fortunately he was aware of this. He was sympathetic and would send me marked up texts saying, “Look, you have to fix this, this, this and this.” But it was a bother, a real bother.

KJ: Yeah, I can imagine. How long did it take you to translate Wind Up Bird Chronicle? Like, I only read the [edited] English version, and that was still fairly long.

JR: Gee, I don’t remember. The one thing I do remember was the first two volumes of 1Q84, that was a year and a half to do those two volumes. That was after I had retired. So I wasn’t going to faculty meetings and I wasn’t grading student papers. And that was a pretty fast job for me. A year and a half to do two thick books. Usually, I kind of assume it takes about a year to do a volume, and if it’s a thin volume, a little less than a year. But it did take me just about the time that I allotted to it, a year and a half, to do those two books. I’m sure I kept some notes about how long it took me. I kind of had a work diary or something, and I would just simply write down the days when I started, when I stopped, how much I got through. I think it was probably two years to get through that book. I can’t say for sure.

KJ: That’s really quick, in my opinion. Just being able to translate all of Wind Up Bird Chronicle while teaching, in two years, that’s pretty impressive. Are you still translating now? I mean, as you mentioned, you’re retired now. Are you still working on translations?

JR: The last thing I translated was Murakami’s interviews with Seiji Ozawa. Did you know about that book?

KJ: Not the book, but I think I remember hearing about the interviews.

JR: It’s a book, about 377 pages, I’m looking around for it. Oh well. The book I’m working on these days in my own novel.

KJ: Yeah, I saw that! On the Wikipedia page, it mentions that The Sun Gods is a novel that you’re working on and it’s coming out in May.

JR: Yeah, yeah, so actually, today was the last day I could send them any corrections. Fortunately, I did a bunch of those a couple days ago. So we’ve gotten to the stage now where it’s done. Even if I find something that I’m sorry that I wrote that way. I’ve had it. It’s been pretty intense working on this thing, especially the whole editorial phase has been very intense. I’m really looking forward to it.

KJ: What made you want to write a book?

JR: Well, I think everybody who works on literature academically secretly wants to write a book. Don’t you want to write a book?

KJ: Yeah.

JR: (Laughs). This book is about the incarceration of Japanese, Japanese-Americans during World War II. It’s set in Seattle and it’s all about how the people were sent from here out to the camp called Minidoka. Do you know about…?

KJ: Yeah, I’ve heard about it. I haven’t studied it in class or anything but I have read up some on my own.

JR: So, I spent a long time working on that thing. It was a subject that got me annoyed, got me angry because I didn’t learn about it until I was in graduate school. I didn’t know that it had happened.

KJ: Really??

JR: People didn’t know about it back then, people really didn’t know about it until after 1980. [From then] on it became a topic of conversation. Even now, on the east coast, a lot of people don’t know it happened. There’s much more awareness of it out on the west coast, which is where the people were rounded up and moved out.

KJ: That surprises me. That does surprise me.

JR: Well, I’m glad to hear that because that means there’s more awareness of what happened. There used to be none and that’s part of what got me writing, was realizing that I had remained ignorant of this until I was in my twenties. I just didn’t know that it had happened, that this country had locked people up, especially the people I was close to, since I was working on Japanese and starting to become so much more aware of Japanese people as an ethnic group. Yeah, I got angry. That’s what motivated me to write that.

KJ: So how long have you been working on it?

JR: How long–? I would say, to do the whole thing took about three to four years. But I started it thirty years ago. I thought it was finished after about two, two and a half years, couldn’t get anybody interested in it and just forgot about it cause then I got busy with Murakami’s translations. Just before I started working on Murakami is when I was working on that and then I pretty much got obsessed with Murakami for another fifteen or twenty years. And it only occurred to me lately that if I don’t publish this damn thing, this year, the 70^th anniversary of the end of the war, I’m not going to live long enough to ever publish it, so now’s the time. And I fortunately found a publisher this time. I think that had a lot to do with it, with the increased awareness there is of the whole phenomenon. So I got very good, very warm reception from this little Seattle publisher. They’ve done a beautiful job of producing the book and it’s going to be a really nice book, I think, when it comes out. It’s going to be paperback. It’s going to be a kind of paperback with flaps. (Laughs.)

KJ: Oh! They’re like fancier paperbacks that—

JR: Somewhat fancier paperback, but still, it’s only fifteen dollars, so it’s an affordable book.

KJ: I’m gonna buy it and read it so, you have at least one reader.

JR: That’s very encouraging. I need at least one. (Laughs).

KJ: Yeah. Have you read The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet?

JR: Yes. I was very angry about that book because I had written my novel thirty years ago and this guy came along and he was the first one to write about this kind of phenomenon in Seattle. He set it in Seattle, he did a great job. (Laughs). So it was kind of annoying to me that someone else beat me to it even though I had already written the book. But yeah, it’s a nice little book. My book’s not the least bit sentimental, or at least not that kind of sentimental. It’s rather sentimental, don’t you think?

KJ: Yeah, it’s definitely sentimental. I mean, it addresses a lot of issues but they’re all framed within the context of what’s basically a love story.

JR: Yeah, yeah. Well, I got a love story in mine too, but it’s much less…optimistic, let’s put it that way.

KJ: That’ll take some doing, cause that one wasn’t exactly the most optimistic love story, I’d say.

JR: Yeah, I know what you mean. But it’s sweet, it’s a very sweet book.

KJ: True. The ending definitely reinforces that.

JR: I enjoyed it. When he came to town, I went and got his autograph. I definitely enjoyed the book. There’s another one, what is it? The one I haven’t read is Snow Falling From Cedars, no, it’s Snow Falling on Cedars. You know that book?

KJ: I haven’t heard of it.

JR: Yeah, they made a movie out of that one. Kind of a detective story. That’s also set in this area [Seattle]. So mine is going to be looked upon as the third novel, when in fact—

KJ: It was written many years ago.

JR: But I’m excited about it. I’m really very pleased that a real publisher—a small publisher, but a real publisher—wanted to do it and gave me an editor to work with and the editing process was just marvelous. He was so good at giving me feedback on all kinds of things in the book. It’s a whole lot better than it was four or five months ago.

KJ: You said it was a really intense process?

JR: Very intense. Especially, there was a good solid month where—he lives and teaches down in Claremont, in the Claremont Colleges down in California. So I’ve never met him. We were just constantly emailing back and forth, and he would send me marked up texts, and here’s another wonderful thing about working in electronic text: track changes. You know track changes?

KJ: Uh-huh.

JR: Yeah. I am a great admirer of track changes. It’s a great way to send revisions to people.

KJ: Yeah, that’s what Professor Zimmerman uses to correct my translations of “Fusehime.”

JR: Oh good! Sure, sure.

KJ: Well, I don’t want to take up too much more of your time so I guess my last question will be if someone wanted to get into translating, either academically or for the more contemporary publishing industry, what would be your advice to them?

JR: Get a job.

KJ: Get a job?

JR: (Laughs). Yeah, I’m afraid so. You need to support yourself and you’re probably not going to do it with literary translating. Not too many people can do that. Even—what’s her name? Grossman, the Spanish translator. I can’t remember her first name. She’s very well-known and I met her once. I really enjoyed meeting her but it’s a real struggle for her. And she’s very widely read. She publishes books that get printed and reprinted. It’s really hard to make a living as a literary translator. And if you think you’re going to do commercial work to keep yourself fed and do your literary work at night or something, very few people can do that. Cause it really is hard on the brain, you know. You have to concentrate to translate.

KJ: Oh yeah.

JR: I can’t take more than four hours of that in any one day. It’s very hard. We can’t make a living doing that kind of thing. Or I couldn’t, I could never had made it. So, literally, I know it’s not very exciting but, I have basic advice for budding translators, and that is get a job of some kind and probably an academic one cause it’ll give you time to do other things, and write a lot. Just practice. The more you translate, the more you get your tools ready to do the job, and it’s like practicing a musical instrument. You’ve got to use it all the time and keep it ready. It’s boring but it happens to be the case. To get through a book like 1Q84, you get up in the morning, you sit down at the computer and just do as much as you can until your brain fries and then you go off and do other things and the next morning do the same thing. If you’ve got this much down one morning, and this much done the next morning, you know, if you have enough mornings, they pile up and you can do it.

KJ: Alright, well. Thank you very much for taking the time to speak with me.

JR: I hope it’s been of some use.

KJ: Yes. I definitely, I enjoyed speaking with you. Thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to speak with me.

Yves Saint Laurent: the Person Is Better than the Movie

May 13, 2015Blog post on a cultural experienceErika

Following Coco Chanel, visionary designer Yves Saint Laurent is the latest of France’s fashion revolutionaries to get the star treatment; two biopics in 2014 alone. Unfortunately, his beautiful gowns can’t salvage director Jalil Lespert’s meandering film. Yves Saint Laurent aims to embody the essence of Saint Laurent’s art, but is ultimately missing a seam. Lespert’s clumsy inclusion of Pierre Bergé’s angle turns the film into one that is sumptuously clothed, but void in spirit.

As the film opens, Yves Saint Laurent (Pierre Niney) is already an established protégé of Christian Dior at 21. The film’s Yves is a willowy and shy artistic genius. We follow Yves from his struggle with the responsibility of running Dior, to his emotional breakdown, to his first fashion show under YSL, to his drug abuse and onward into middle age. The film’s notion of this fashion legend – a troubled genius who blossoms in his art but flails elsewhere – is seductive. The film exemplifies this familiar characterization in stunning cinematography but falls short in dramatic progression.

One such scene highlights Niney’s exceptional acting ability, for which he was awarded a César. After his first show as the head of his own fashion house, we can practically see Yves’s shy demeanor shattering while he relishes the glory of a standing ovation – a child basking in praise. This artfully simple moment is telling of Niney’s talent; he is able to capture both the passion of an artistic genius and the anxiety of a precocious young adult. But unfortunately, the film gives Niney no sustained opportunity to develop the character of Yves Saint Laurent.

Lespert’s interpretation of Saint Laurent is cinematically appealing but otherwise inert. The character is devoted to his art to a fault; his Yves never escapes the cliché of a troubled genius. For the majority of the film, the Yves Saint Laurent is reduced to a simpering man-child who thinks of little else other than making pretty clothing to please the crowds. Again and again, Pierre Bergé (Guillaume Gallienne), Saint Laurent’s real-life business and life partner, steals the spotlight to the film’s detriment. From the moment his character is introduced, Pierre distracts the audience from the eponymous hero. One is left wondering just how much direction the real Bergé, who was on set for a part of filming, had in the creation of the film.

Pierre Bergé’s business mentality constantly tugs at the hem of Yves Saint Laurent. The film paints the brand’s decision to create a prêt-a-porter line as one of purely business. Haute couture is financially dead, so Pierre has to decide what is best for YSL. In fact, Saint Laurent was the first designer to construct such a line; he did so as a political declaration. The idea of ready to wear designer clothing was one of democratization and a controversial communalist philosophy.

Nonetheless, YSL brand continues to be highly visible in a business-minded, commercial manner. The dresses featured in the film, which were chosen by Bergé, are all examples of YSL’s most marketable gowns. The film does not venture into YSL’s innovative haute couture, which is riskier and less appealing to the average moviegoer. Notably, very few models of color are used in the film – adding to the prosaic feel of YSL’s clothing. In actuality, Saint Laurent often used models of color in his shows. Several of his muses were of African descent. Yves Saint Laurent also fails to address the issue of French culture in the 20^th century, where fashion was a reflection of the tumultuous politics and trends.

Lespert seems to have forgotten the era in which Saint Laurent operated. Saint Laurent did his best work, and revolutionized French fashion in the process, during the “Trentes Glorieuses”. This thirty-year period of economic prosperity from the 1950’s to the 1970’s saw France’s rise to the forefront of art and fashion all over the world. At the same time, the country was dealing with the collapse of its last colonial ventures with the Algerian War in 1958 – when the film begins. Yet, like polite dinner conversation, the film expertly avoids any direct confrontation with troublesome topics. Whenever politics are mentioned, Lespert’s Yves sidesteps the issue. We are left wanting to know more and feeling cheated of the importance of the issues that Lespert should have tackled head on.

In real life, Saint Laurent could not escape the political turmoil of the times. The designer was conscripted in 1960 to fight for the French cause. This forced him to leave his art, and it led to a breakdown caused by homophobic hazing he suffered in the army. Once again, we see none of the inconvenient details. A voiceover simply informs us that the designer was beaten, broken down, and sent to a psychiatric facility. However, when that issue is addressed on screen, Yves is already well into recovery. Only a faint fatigue in Niney’s face and sadness in his eyes betray the gravity of the abuse. Homophobia is barely mentioned again.

Even the Vietnam War and the rise of communist ideals are given the Lespert treatment. Giant cultural events are briefly introduced and quickly whisked away like last season’s patterns. Before we can fully understand the societal movements that inspired the designer, the film cuts to scenes of Yves’s drunken escapades or his lovers’ quarrels with Pierre. Yves Saint Laurent dangles a cultural revelation before us, only to snatch it back and replace it with scenes of Yves’s frivolous personal life. At every turn, Lespert undermines Saint Laurent’s inspirations. In the end, the film is inundated with scenes of the designer’s mood swings and drug abuse.

There were ample opportunities to use fashion and film to construct a commentary on the political issues of 20^th century France. But, none of Saint Laurent’s political ideals are explored. None of his cultural influences are explained. Instead, the character of Pierre Bergé is elevated to that of the long-suffering partner. Although this is not a severe departure from the true events of Saint Laurent’s life, these ending scenes only added on to the unfulfilled feeling of the whole film as a biopic about Yves Saint Laurent – not Pierre Bergé.

For a film about French fashion, Yves Saint Laurent could not be more commercialized and meaningless. Lespert doesn’t make any statements, doesn’t ruffle anyone’s feathers. He blithely glosses over the less pretty aspects of Saint Laurent’s life. Lespert’s safe approach to fashion only reinforces the false impression that the industry is void of deeper meaning. Niney valiantly tries to bring out the nuances, but he isn’t given the proper environment in which to develop his character. Instead, Pierre Bergé’s business-minded persona steals the show. The film is a fluffy, convenient confection of fashion attempting to summarize the iconic culture of French couture. Unlike its namesake, Yves Saint Laurent presents only empty fashion.

Home in the Foreign: An Interview with Eve Zimmerman

May 13, 2015Interview and profileby Hanna Day-Tenerowiczhdaytene

Profile

Does a foreigner ever stop being foreign? Eve Zimmerman, a professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Wellesley College, doesn’t think so. “As a caucasian person who started studying Japanese when I was seventeen,” she remarks, “I’ll never be a bilingual speaker—I’m always going to be a foreigner speaking a foreign language.” Nonetheless, Zimmerman delved into Japanese language and culture right after graduating from high school, and she never looked back.

“My introduction to Japanese,” she told me in her office one sunny Friday afternoon, “was serendipity.” Born in Wales and raised in the States, Zimmerman was a self-described teenage Anglophile, and planned to spend a gap year between high school and college nannying for relatives in England. Shortly before she left, her uncle got a job at the British Embassy in Tokyo; he invited her to tag along, and on a whim, she said yes. She fell in love with Japan that year—with the language, with the culture, with the aesthetic.

Zimmerman went on to get her PhD in Japanese Literature from Columbia University. After teaching for several years at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, she moved across the country with her husband and two young children. She then spent a few years teaching at Boston University before coming to Wellesley College, where she is now the chair of the East Asian Languages and Cultures department. During her graduate studies, Zimmerman gravitated towards the study of girlhood and femininity within Japanese culture. Having spent nearly a decade studying the intensely male-dominated academic commentary surrounding the writing of Kenji Nakagami, Zimmerman recalls feeling “so tired of trying to fit into this impossible group” of critics. “I wanted to do something that I could recognize,” she explains, “and that was women’s literature.”

Japanese women’s literature has continued to captivate Zimmerman to this day. She’s currently at work on her second book project, a translation-based study of the introduction of classic Western “girlhood texts” to Japan and their subsequent influence on Japanese culture. From Wuthering Heights to The Diary of Anne Frank, Zimmerman has traced how translated Western “girlhood texts” facilitated a boom in postwar Japanese women’s writing. Her second book project was actually inspired by what she describes as “the equivalent of an academic midlife crisis when I began to wonder what it was … that I could offer to students, to a community of scholars.” Zimmerman found her niche in translation. As a white woman studying Japanese culture, she has always approached her studies with great humility, treading carefully and avoiding an imperialist viewpoint. Zimmerman’s “academic midlife crisis” led her to discover her passion for translation as the intersection of her own culture and Japanese culture.

Her teaching, writing, and discussion of Japanese language and culture has been infused with respect, and this has been a significant factor in her academic success so far. With her dedication, enthusiasm, and respect, there’s no doubt that Zimmerman will continue to be a positive innovator in the field of Japanese language and literature.

Interview Transcript

Hanna Day-Tenerowicz: Could you start by telling me a bit about yourself?

Eve Zimmerman: Yes, so, Eve Zimmerman, interviewee here. So now we’re beginning…So I research Japanese culture, postwar literature, and I got into this field partly ‘cause I grew up—uh, my mother was Welsh and I was born in Wales, and my father’s American, and we—I was moved to the States when I was very little. But my mother was a professor at the time, of Latin American literature, so I think I grew up with this interest in other languages from hearing Spanish around me, and seeing the antics of many Spanish departments, ‘cause she was an academic. But my introduction to Japanese was serendipity, I just happened… I had planned a gap year, I wasn’t going to go to college and I was going to be a nanny for my relatives in England. And right at that moment, my uncle got transferred to Tokyo, to work at the British Embassy. And so they said, “Do you want to come to Japan for a year?” and I had never even—I barely knew where Japan was, I’d never studied the language. But that’s what started me off, and after that year of doing intensive Japanese, I’ve never stopped studying Japanese. In fact, I think I’ll be studying Japanese forever. There’s always another level, there’s always some other Chinese character that you’ve never seen before. And, I just fell in love, I think, with the aesthetics of Japanese culture. That was the beginning. And then I began to study literature, because I just grew up in this household where there was a lot of literature around, and poetry, and so that’s just how I ended up here, where I am now.

[…]

HDT: How have you approached teaching, talking, and writing about East Asian cultures as an American and as a white person?

EZ: Ahh, with great humility. Actually, I think I had the equivalent of an academic midlife crisis when I began to wonder what it was, what is it that I could offer to students, to a community of scholars, and it’s actually what shaped my second book. Because, as a caucasian person who started studying Japanese when I was 17, I’ll never be a bilingual speaker—I’m always going to be a foreigner speaking a foreign language. So I thought, well what is it? Because I could never hope to catch up with my Japanese colleagues. So I realized that I was very interested in translation, and the process of that—not just theorizing translation, but actually doing translation. And I’ve done two book-length translations; one is a non-fiction, an autobiography of a guy who went and did strawberry farming in California in the ‘60s; and then the other book, the other translation I did was the story of this writer who came from the outcaste class. So I was just very interested in what it is to sit down and—it is a creative process, but how does it differ from the process of writing? And how, in a way, you have to really cleanse your mind of academic writing if you’re going to do translation, because academic writing gums up everything. So that I realized was something I could do in this field, I could translate. And then my second book project, which is based on translation, it’s about how Western classic “girlhood texts” (and “girlhood texts” I say with quotes around it), came into Japan, were translated, and how they facilitated a boom in postwar Japanese women’s writing. And, so, Wuthering Heights is the first chapter of the book, because Wuthering Heights was translated, and a number of Japanese writers have worked with the material, and the characters, and the setting of Wuthering Heights, to the point that a woman wrote a text about ten years ago that was an 800-page version of Wuthering Heights in Japanese. So it’s that sort of place, I think, having grown up being a reader of 19th-century English fiction, and I can see, is there any connection? And of course there’s going to be a connection, but is it worth—what kind of connection is it? So that’s how I thought I could contribute.

HDT: Did you find with the “girlhood texts” that anything was lost or gained in translation?

EZ: Oh, yeah, that’s a great question. I think things are transformed sometimes, beyond recognition, because I do believe translation is a creative act, and so the original is just the seed that you throw into the ground. And you don’t know what is going to grow up from that seed, it depends on the climate, and the soil conditions. Very extended way of saying that things are the same, and yet they are different, and that’s the interesting thing about it. So in the case of Wuthering Heights, you’ve got Heathcliff going from being really quite a savage character in English to a Heathcliff who weeps as Catharine is dying, who worries, who is very solicitous about her illness. He doesn’t say, “I will blight and damn you,” he says, “Don’t do that, you will make your illness worse,” and is weeping. So, you know, what is that performative side of the translated text? You know, what is it performing about, and for whom? Yeah, so those are the questions.

HDT: How do you approach the responsibility of translation? I’ve done some translation myself, and it feels like kind of a huge weight on your shoulders to speak for these other people without, like, twisting their words around. Like, it’s hard to find the balance between direct translation that is not pretty, and pretty translation that isn’t quite as direct.

EZ: Well, you know…so I had an experience with this, and I was fortunate enough to show my translation to Jay Rubin, the translator of Murakami, and so, this is a very brief example: there’s a word in Japanese that can mean “bloodline” or “family line,” and so I had translated this word as “family,” because this character is talking about a tendency in the family—“we can’t drink, in our family we’re alcoholics if we drink, so we can’t drink”—but Jay pointed out to me that I really should stick with the image of the blood. Because it’s blood that defines Japanese outcaste status, right? Like, these people have different blood from majority Japanese. So, in fact, being somewhat more literal, it’s keeping that…recognizing what’s important in the text that you have to keep alive, and what you can dispense with so that the English reader feels somewhat at home. So I don’t believe that one can be a successful translator and make it completely awkward in English, you know there’s that whole theory that that’s what you should do; I don’t believe that, because it doesn’t work!

HDT: Right, ‘cause it’s not really English then, it’s just translated English.

EZ: Exactly, yeah.

HDT: What led you to study girlhood and femininity in particular within Japanese culture?

EZ: Oh, thank you for asking! Well, I spent my graduate student years studying this writer, Kenji Nakagami, who’s writing about what seems to be a very macho culture on the surface, but is actually some kind of matriarchy underneath. But it was his writing, plus the male literary critics surrounding this author, who were controlling his legacy, and controlling the discourse about him. And I got so tired of trying to fit into this impossible group. You know, there’s just, it was just too much machismo for me after ten years of doing it. And so I wanted to do something that I could recognize, and that was women’s literature. This just happens to graduate students—you go through this almost hazing process, and you start identifying with whoever’s teaching you, and that’s what happened to me. You have to prove your worth on that ground, and my second book project was not about that. As a result, it’s taking me time to write.

HDT: Are you still working on the second project?

EZ: Yeah, yeah. So, hopefully this summer…one of the chapters I just finished is about Anne Frank’s diary and a Japanese woman writer, Yōko Ogawa, and how Ogawa uses The Diary of Anne Frank in her work, and how she uses it and what it means to her in her writing. So that’s the latest thing.

HDT: Do you identify as a feminist? And if so, when did you begin to call yourself a feminist, and if not, why not?

EZ: Wow, that’s a very good question. I mean, I suppose I started pretty young, and I think it’s ‘cause I had a working mother who was very good at pursuing the dream that she had of being a professional and having her own independent existence, so to me that seemed, by default, just the way to be. But I’ll tell you, I think the time I really became a feminist happened when I was an assistant professor, and you know, it was post structuralist days, and the feminists of the seventies, those critics, those original madwomen in the attic critics, started coming under—they themselves were being subjected to criticism, that their work was heterosexist, and it was classist, and I started going back and reading the old journals, some of the old feminist journals that came out in the seventies, from those co-operatives, and I thought, “This stuff is just great.” And I think it was then, after growing up with it, and then having to look back, and read about it and think about it, that I really became a feminist.

HDT: Do you remember what your first experience interacting with another culture was, in any context?

EZ: Oh, that’s a good question…yeah, any context…oh, well I was a terrible Anglophile as a teenager, because I thought that being Welsh and going to Wales and eating Welsh cakes was the height of civilization. I really, I just loved Wales. And I had a grandfather I adored, and he lived until I was about 12 or 13, and so I had this whole phase where England was the homeland. And it’s funny, now when I go to England, I feel very much a stranger there. I have no…English culture seems rather uptight and negative. So, yeah, I think it was my Welsh mother and my Welsh grandfather, that must have been it.

HDT: Did you ever feel like you were in between two cultures having moved from Wales to the United States, or did you just grow up feeling like you fit in in America?

EZ: Oh, I think I was American. Except I did have this mother who didn’t know what sports were, and we never went to Disneyland, and we didn’t do a lot of those things. But, I think I felt very comfortable growing up. The times I’ve felt in between cultures is when I’ve lived in Japan for a long time and come back to the States, because then I really feel a bit estranged. I get so used to living and speaking in a certain way, and behaving in a certain way. I come back, and my sisters will tease me, “Why are you speaking in such a high voice?” So, but all in a good way, yeah.

HDT: What do you think is the hardest thing to get used to when you’re transitioning into living in Japanese culture and then when you’re transitioning back to American culture?

EZ: Oh gosh, so many things…yeah. Well, how to be female and assertive while speaking Japanese is difficult, Hanna, it really is. Because it’s, you know, here we’re sort of trained to, you know, you have to speak up, and you have to walk into the room and make sure people hear you. But there’s a way to be incredibly assertive in Japanese as a woman without sounding or acting like an American. So that’s always the challenge for me. It’s hard. I don’t know if I’m successful. But what I’ve done is find female role models, so women who are somewhat senior to me, or Japanese women, and I listen to the way that they speak, and I copy that.

[…]

HDT: Do you prefer to be traveling, or do you prefer to have a home base and just kind of staying in one place?

EZ: Oh, yeah, that’s…you know, here’s the thing—I like to be at home, and then I get very restless. So, I’m afraid that’s happening to me at Wellesley a bit. I’m getting restless, I’ve been here fifteen years, and I’ve never stayed anywhere for longer than five years before this! Because we moved a lot when I was a kid, so I, yeah, I think I like to be able to have a home base but also roam around. And I feel as if I’ve traveled a lot, but my kids are just leaving home now, and so this could be the time to do more traveling.

HDT: If you could give your undergraduate self one piece of advice, what would it be?

EZ: Oh, gosh, yeah…have more confidence in my abilities. I would tell all my undergraduates…there was Helen Miren, I was just talking to Thom Hodge in Russian…so, Helen Miren has this quote, that is, “To be young and beautiful is to be miserable and paranoid.” I thought that was so funny! And he’s designing—we’re doing how to spread the word about, promoting humanities at the College. And he said that, you might be young and beautiful, but then you do waste an awful lot of time just feeling you might be beautiful but you’re worthless, or you know, yeah, I think there’s still that feeling among women, of insecurity, you know, young women. And so I would turn to myself and say, “Go and be proud, be confident. Don’t waste time.”

HDT: What is your favorite thing about American culture and what is your favorite thing about Japanese culture, if you could pick some aspect?

EZ: Oh, yeah…American culture is messy, and Japanese culture is clean. And so what I mean by that is, what I like about America is the openness, when I come back from Japan I notice how many different kinds of people are interacting with each other—yeah, sometimes it’s a disaster—but, you know, there is this lack of…things aren’t determined, at some level in America, it’s more rough and tumble. And in Japan, there’s an unwritten set of rules and behaviors, and sometimes it’s constricting. […] You get tired of, if you speak Japanese, you begin to expect people to treat you like any normal person, but there’s still always this emphasis on racial difference or cultural difference, so I find that kind of constricting.

[…]

HDT: How many times have you been to Japan to live or study?

EZ: A few long times where, you know, I did graduate research. I would say I’ve lived there about…not quite ten years, but on and off. So, these days, with this job (hello, Wellesley College), and the family obligations, it’s been harder to go. I go for short periods, so last year I was there for a month in April, and this summer I’m going for a month in July, to do a research project with my sister. So, but, you know, one of these days soon I’d love to go and spend more time there, just be there for two years, because one year seems too short. But two years would be great.

HDT: What would you want to do there?

EZ: Oh, I’d probably do, I’d love to do a Fulbright with some teaching in it, because then you meet people and there’s a context, and work on my third project, whatever that’ll be. That’s what I’d love to do. It’s a great place to live.

HDT: What’s your favorite thing about living there?

EZ: Oh, my dear…It’s probably the way you discover things in Tokyo. You know, you’ll be in a place that looks like a concrete jungle, and you’ll be walking down the street, and then there’s suddenly a garden or a shrine, or you see a store that’s selling beautiful edo fabrics. And it’s just these moments of discovery […] There’s an attention to…there’s a kind of care given to how one lives in the world, and it’s aesthetic, again, it’s that sense…and I just go, “Aaahhh! So now I know why I’m so interested in this.”

HDT: How did you find yourself at Wellesley College?

EZ: Oh, yes, how did I get here? I didn’t go to a small liberal arts college, so it wasn’t on my radar. You know, I got here, again out of luck. I was teaching at USC in LA, and my husband couldn’t find a job, I was supporting him. And then he got a job at MIT. So we, I’ve been incredibly lucky. First I was at BU, I had a job there for three or four years, and a job opened up here. And it’s just been great. And I’ll tell you what I love most about it, it’s really the students here. Because I was at BU and it was hard to get students to do the reading or take an interest. And they were not served very well by the university at the time, I think it’s much much better now, but I just remember the first day I came to Wellesley it was winter, and I came here with the kids, they were playing, they were very young then, two and four, and I just remember seeing the garden, the Hunnewell topiary…and I thought, “Where am I?!” I got the job offer and I said yes. Much, much better than where I’d been.

HDT: What is your favorite thing about Wellesley, and what’s your least favorite thing?

EZ: Oh, so, the students are my favorite thing. I know it sounds hackneyed, but I was thinking this semester what I’ve enjoyed most, and really it’s working with the students, and with Katherine, and Sophia. And it’s not just teaching students in one course, it’s getting to know them, really intellectually from the time they—you know, maybe they come to one of my classes as a sophomore, then maybe they come back again—and so it’s seeing students growing. I think that’s…you know, and I don’t mean in some sentimental way, I mean in concrete, intellectual terms—how they write, how they think, what they feel they can do—it’s all that. I also have very nice colleagues in this department. So that I enjoy, a lot. So, what do I like least about Wellesley…oh, dear Wellesley…dear Wellesley, if I were to write a letter to Wellesley College, I’d say, “Please learn to change with the times, and to be more responsive to new ideas.”

HDT: I’m sure a lot of the students would agree with you there!

EZ: Yeah, you know, I do have a history now, fifteen years, and I just wish there were a quicker decision-making process, or a way to do innovative things without lots of plodding along.

HDT: Forming a committee…

EZ: I think lots of educational institutions have this problem, it’s not just here. […] Here, I know what I’d do! Get rid of the departments. ‘Cause I think a lot of the problem comes from these entrenched departments, and faculty being territorial, and if we could just take the walls down, it would be interesting, wouldn’t it?

HDT: What are your thoughts on the new admissions policy regarding gender?

EZ: I say the more the merrier. I think it’s great! I mean, I don’t know how many students it will impact, but I must say I’m very proud to be at this institution and having Wellesley do that. I think that took courage, because the alums can be very conservative, or they are worried about it. But it’s interesting, I went to speak to an alumna club in Santa Barbara, and you would think that that would be a pretty conservative place, and they couldn’t care less about gender. You know, somebody raised a question after my talk, and everybody else said, “Oh, it’s not an issue, who cares?” So I thought, “Wow! This is a very good group.” And if this is representative of Wellesley’s alumna body then I’m not worried at all. […] I don’t think it’s going to change life here that much, it’s just the way it is now. Your generation doesn’t mind about that!

HDT: No! Although surprisingly, a few people do, which was very strange. I don’t know if you’ve heard of Yik Yak, it’s this anonymous thing […] and some people, after they released the decision, were on Yik Yak saying like, “I can’t believe this. I’m gonna transfer.” They literally said that, and we were all like, “Woah!” And some people were like, “My right to call this a sisterhood feels infringed upon.”

EZ: Ugh, what a snooze, really. Yeah. I mean, the interesting thing is that in East Asia and in South Asia, there is a third gender sometimes. [Someone] was telling me about the third gender in India, and it’s a thing, it’s just been there for a long time. And in Japan you have men who live as women in the theater world, you know, it’s just, they perform female roles, but in real life they live in a female way. So there isn’t this split saying, well I just do it on stage but I don’t do it at home, no, they live that way, and they identify that way. So, I think in some cultures, it’s just not a big deal anyway.

HDT: That’s really interesting! So Japan tends to be pretty accepting about that?

EZ: Well, again, it’s repressed. Right, so there are certain ways to express one’s sexuality that are accepted, and there are other forums or other areas of life in which you can’t. So, I would say businesses are pretty darn conservative, but then you look at some of the traditional edo period premodern prints, and there’s a lot about…I mean, I’ve seen one set of prints that’s about a transgender man, and it’s no big deal. So, again, it’s very context-oriented.

HDT: How does Japan feel about Queer people or homosexuality?

EZ: Well, it’s coming out now, Hanna, in the sense that I would say that now there’s more of a movement. And I had a former student that went to Kyoto, and she made a connection to a lesbian bar coffeehouse, and she worked there and met people, and we actually had another student who did a thesis on this topic and was interviewing people about their attitudes on homosexuality. So it’s definitely something that has arrived. And I know also that the first two women in Japan just got married in Tokyo. It was six months ago, and there were a lot of photographs, you know, there was big press about it, and it was all over the web. And they both were wearing these quite traditional dresses, you know, both of them were in white dresses. So, yeah, I think it’s gonna take time, because it’s never like America where it’s all on the surface, but people just kind of know that about other people and I don’t think it’s such a huge deal. But it’s not out in front of the cameras the way it is in this country.

HDT: Do you think that slows down their ability to make cultural or institutional changes? Or do you think that the United States is just as slow?

EZ: No, I think they’re behind. Definitely. And because the U.S., because you have these social movements, it’s easier to make changes. We’re good about that! I mean, not all of the states are, but…Yeah.

FREN/CPLT 359

ADVOCATING FOR OTHER CULTURES — A Wellesley College Calderwood Seminar in Public Writing