Yingjin Zhang

Abstract

Through a consideration of the introductions that Yingjin Zhang wrote for the first and final solo-edited volumes of his career, China in a Polycentric World (1998) and A World History of Chinese Literature (2023), this essay examines some of the concerns with the relationship between Chinese and world literature that preoccupied Zhang throughout his career. In particular, he approached the category of Chinese literature and culture as being grounded in a concept of Chineseness understood not as a national but rather as a cultural category. Moreover, he stressed that Chinese and world literature are best understood not as discrete concepts or categories, but rather as dynamic practices, which has allowed them to consistently exceed and transcend political or institutional attempts to limit the literary field’s nominal scope or possibilities.

Notes

1 In 1998, Zhang also published Encyclopedia of Chinese Film, which he co-edited with Zhiwei Xiao.

2 Yingjin Zhang, ed. China in a Polycentric World: Essays in Chinese Comparative Literature (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1998), 2.

3 Zhang, China in a Polycentric World, 3.

4 Zhang, China in a Polycentric World, 5 (emphasis in the original).

5 Yingjin Zhang, ed., A World History of Chinese Literature (New York: Routledge, 2023).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Carlos Rojas

Carlos Rojas is professor of Chinese cultural studies at Duke University.