Podcasts by Chinese Literature Podcast
Rob and Lee Moore talk about Chinese Literature.
Further podcasts by Rob and Lee Moore
Podcast on the topic Gesellschaft und Kultur
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Lu Xun - Soap from 2022-02-19T05:30
Today's podcast is an interview with Professor Carolyn Brown, author of Reading Lu Xun through Carl Jung. We had a great conversation with her about Lu Xun's story "Soap." This story, i...
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Lu Xun - True Story of Ah Q - Lu Xun Series #6 from 2022-02-12T05:38:35
This week's podcast is on one of the most important stories in modern Chinese literature, Lu Xun's True Story of Ah Q (?? - ?Q??). Rob and Lee attempt to tackle the story that changed C...
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Kong Yiji - Lu Xun Series #5 from 2022-02-05T05:10:20
Today, we have author, translator and teacher, Professor Bryan Van Norden, on the podcast to discuss Lu Xun's short but fascinating story of Kong Yiji (?? - ???), the book-stealing scholar who Lu X...
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Lu Xun - Diary of a Madman - Lu Xun Series #4 from 2022-01-29T05:07:02
Here we are at what is arguably Lu Xun's most important text. Rob and Lee discuss this text in terms of content, language and modernity.
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War Cry Preface - Interview with Roy Chan from 2022-01-22T05:38:42
In Episode 3 in our Lu Xun Series, we interview one of the experts in the field of Lu Xun studies (and advisor to both Rob and Lee) about the Preface to Lu Xun's most important collection of sho...
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Lu Xun - Towards the Refutation of Malevolent Voices - Interview with Professor Huters from 2022-01-15T05:30
Today, we have our second installment in the Lu Xun series. This week we are joined by Professor Theodore Huters, Professor Emeriti in UCLA's Asian Languages and Cultures Department and Chief Ed...
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Lu Xun Introduction from 2022-01-08T05:30
This is the first episode in our series on Lu Xun, and, for this episode, we are going to look at some of the earliest aspects of Lu Xun's career, both his time growing up in Shaoxing, his time ...
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End of the Year Podcast from 2022-01-01T05:30
This week, we change up the format a bit. Instead of talking about a specific text, we catch on our personal lives a bit, talking about grad school, what we learned in finishing our Ph.D.'s and ...
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Shen Congwen from 2021-12-18T05:30
This week, we look at one of the most famous writers in modern China. It is surprising that we have not tackled Shen Congwen before...he was in contention for China's first Nobel Prize for Liter...
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Chen Qiufan from 2021-12-11T05:30
This week, we are discussing a story from Ken Liu's Invisible Planets, a collection of science fiction short stories that he recently translated and published. Chen Qiufan's "The Year o...
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Zhu Ziqing from 2021-11-20T05:30
Zhu Ziqing (???) wrote a short, touching essay on his father. In the essay, Retreating Figure (??), Zhu grows up a great deal by watching his father grow old.
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Ouyang Xiu - Spring at Jade Tower from 2021-11-13T05:30
We thought we were done with the Song, but we just cannot get enough of it. Now, we are going back to Ouyang Xiu with a poem that features in a translation of a late Qing thinker that Rob is wor...
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Elon Musk's Chinese Poem from 2021-11-06T04:30
It has happened again. For the second time this year, a billionaire has used a Chinese poem on social media in a newsworthy way. And you know we had to deal with it! This week, the world's riche...
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Lu Xun's "White Light" from 2021-10-30T04:30
We have another spooky story for Halloween, this time a story from Lu Xun. This story, "White Light," is not as discussed as it ought to be, but it has a skull, a suicide and a question of China...
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The Magic Sword and the Magic Bag from 2021-10-23T04:30
We always come back to Pu Songling. This week, we are looking at his story "The Magic Sword and the Magic Bag," which actually has little to do with either, but rather is a story about love, pro...
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Shi Zhecun from 2021-10-16T04:30
This week, we take a look at on of the great writers from Shanghai's 1930's modernist moment. Shi Zhecun is one of the New Sensationalist (????), and his story, "One Evening in the Rainy Season"...
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China's First Poem from 2021-10-09T04:30
This week, Rob and Lee go back to the very first poem in all of Chinese literature. The first poem in the Classic of Poetry, "Guan, Guan Goes the Osprey" has been interpreted and reinterpreted s...
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Does Chinese Culture Dampen its Nobel Prospects? from 2021-10-02T08:00
Today, Rob and Lee change the format and have a debate about China and innovation, with Rob defending China and Lee arguing that there is something in Chinese culture that does not value innovat...
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End of the Journey from 2021-09-25T04:30
This week, we take our final look at the Journey to the West, fast-forwarding all the way to the end. Today, we will look at the last three chapters of the novel, Chapters 98-100, thinking about...
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Princess Iron Fan from 2021-09-18T04:30
Part 5 in our Journey to the West Series, Rob and Lee take a look at Chapters 59-61, one of the most important fights in the book. In these chapters, Monkey struggles to take the fan from the ap...
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The Maram Epstein Methodology from 2021-09-11T04:30
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Journey To the West Characters from 2021-09-04T04:30
In this third part of the series on Journey to the West, Rob and Lee discuss the characters in the novel other than Monkey (but they still end up mostly talking about Monkey...he is just that mu...
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Enter the Monkey King from 2021-08-28T03:59
By far the most well-known part of Journey to the West is the first 7 chapters. A quasi-divine monkey figures out how to get nearly limitless power, has a whole lot of fun with it, then...
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Journey to the West Series - Episode 1 from 2021-08-21T16:00
Today, we begin our series on on of the most influential novels in the history or China, really in the history of Asia. Today, we begin the Journey of the Journey by contextualizing the novel.
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Ouyang Xiu from 2021-08-14T05:55:53
Today is the last in our podcast series on the Song (we think...). Our subject, Ouyang Xiu is one of the most famous literatis of the 11th century, and he helped inspire the turn towards antiqua...
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Li Qingzhao from 2021-08-07T03:30
Brandon Folse joins us in our next installment on our Song Dynasty series. Today, we are discussing what is definitely the greatest female writer of the Song dynasty and is possibly the greatest...
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Male Mencius' Mother from 2021-07-31T16:14:31
This week, Rob and I are travelling, so we have decided to go back into the vault and dig up one of our first podcasts ever...the sound quality is bad, our explanations are even worse...but the ...
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Su Dongpo - Part 2 from 2021-07-24T16:42:54
Did you know writing a poem could get you exiled? Well, it could and it did, in Su Dongpo's case. Join us in our ongoing accidental series on Song Dynasty poetry!
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Wang Anshi - Part 2 from 2021-07-24T03:00
This is part of our accidental series on the Song, and this is also our second episode on the poetry of Wang Anshi (???). Today, we look at a ballad that Wang wrote upon the death of his wife an...
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Su Dongpo - Part 1 from 2021-07-10T02:00
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Chinese Literature Podcast from 2021-07-03T06:28:14
This week, we explore Jing Tsu's fascinating exploration of the history of language in her book Sound and Script in Chinese Diaspora.
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Sound and Script in Chinese Diaspora from 2021-07-03T06:28:14
This week, we explore Jing Tsu's fascinating exploration of the history of language in her book Sound and Script in Chinese Diaspora.
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Wang Anshi from 2021-06-26T00:00
On today's podcast, we go all the way back to the Northern Song Dynasty, one of the highpoints of Chinese culture, but also a point in which consensus was breaking down. Infighting in the 1070's...
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Qianlong's Poem to Macartney from 2021-06-18T20:50:49
Today's podcast is an interesting poem that functions less as a beautiful poem but more a historical artifact. In 1793, the English Ambassador met with the Chinese Emperor. After their meeting, ...
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Rana Mitter - China's Good War from 2021-06-11T21:29:49
This week's episode is a Supplement, where we will talk about China's Good War, Rana Mitter's latest book. Mitter is a historian, but a lot of the content he analyzes is literary or fil...
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Yang Huang Interview - My Good Son from 2021-06-04T20:37:12
In today's podcast, we interview author Yang Huang about her new book looking at the intersection of China, the US, and the politics of family and gender. The book is titled My Good Son...
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Nie Zheng, Assassin from 2021-05-28T16:00
Today, we dig back into a podcast recorded several years before but never before aired. The topic is Nie Zheng (??), a story in the biography of the assassins, in Sima Qian's Shiji. The...
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Chinese Literature Podcast - 100 Years of Chinese Literature - 1990s from 2021-05-22T04:57:28
This is it, this is the end of our decade-by-decade exploration of Chinese Literature in the 20th Century. Lee explores Mo Yan, while Rob chooses Xi Chuan. Join them for the final episode in thi...
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The $26 Billion Poem from 2021-05-17T22:40:33
This week's episode looks at a Tang Dynasty Poem that cost Meituan Dianping, one of China's unicorn internet companies, 26 Billion dollars off its market capitalization. In this episode, we take...
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Chloe Zhao and the Three-Character Classic from 2021-05-13T05:41:50
Today, we are rebroadcasting an episode that we did on the Three-Character Classic in honor of Chloe Zhao's quoting of the text during the Oscars. The audio quality is a little...well, you'll he...
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100 Years of Chinese Literature: 1980-1989 from 2021-05-08T03:59
At last! Out of the Maoist wilderness and into what may be the most riveting period for literature and the arts in the entire 20th century in China.
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Is Taiwan Chinese? from 2021-05-01T05:14:18
Today, the Chinese Literature Podcast asks the ultimate geopolitical question: Is Taiwan Chinese?
Actually, we are looking at a book titled Is Taiwan Chinese, an anthropological ...
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100 Years of Chinese Literature - 1970's from 2021-04-24T16:00
The dark night lifts at last! 1976 marks the end of both the Cultural Revolution and the Maoist era. It also marks the beginning of one of the most remarkable periods of literature in Chinese hi...
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The Edge of Knowing: by Roy Bing Chan from 2021-04-17T03:00
Okay, fine, so Prof. Chan is on our dissertation committees. But you know what? That lack of objectivity on our parts doesn't mean The Edge of Knowing isn't still a thoroughly remarkabl...
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100 Years of Chinese Literature: 1960-1969 from 2021-04-10T01:00
You want a hard period for a good literary discussion? Then this is your port of call. The 1960's wasn't just a bleak literary landscape in China; it was practically nonexistent. We got around t...
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Chinese Literature Podcast - Supplement - Haggadah of Kaifeng Jews from 2021-04-02T22:32:36
Shalom and welcome to the Chinese Literature Podcast. Today, we have a very special Chinese Literature Podcast in celebration of Passover. We will be looking at the book The Haggadah of the ...
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100 Years of Chinese Literature: 1950-1959 from 2021-03-26T15:30
...And then there were the Maoist years. Following the Chinese Communist Party's victory in 1949, literature was tightly controlled until 1976. That means, well, it's a pretty rough period to di...
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Supplement #4: 19 Ways of Looking at Wang Wei by Eliot Weinberger and Octavio Paz from 2021-03-19T23:00
19 different translations of a single short Tang Dynasty poem add up to a fascinating guided tour of how rich and peculiar it is to encounter the Chinese poetic tradition. Join us to find out mo...
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100 Years of Chinese Literature: 1940-1949 from 2021-03-12T14:00
There's only one decade whose representative writer we both agree on, and this is it. Debates are more fun, but really? It's hard to argue about Zhang Ailing.
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Supplement #3: A Little Primer of Tu-Fu, by David Hawkes from 2021-03-05T15:00
This slim little volume has a whole lot packed into it. Not only does it give the reader a concise history of a crucial moment in Chinese history, but it also beautifully explains to a non-Chine...
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100 Years of Chinese Literature - 1930-1939 - Shi Zhecun vs Lao She from 2021-02-27T02:58
Who owned the 1930's: the author who gave us talking Martian cats, or the one who gave us a sentient decapitated head? Yes, it was a weird decade, was the 1930's. Join us to learn more!
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Supplement #2: Jonathan Spence's The Search for Modern China from 2021-02-19T13:00
The greatest scholar on China ever to emerge from the U.S. academy? That's Lee's line in the sand. But even Rob would agree you can't go wrong reading Jonathan Spence. Join the discussion and te...
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100 Years of Chinese Literature: 1920-1929 from 2021-02-10T14:00
Lu Xun again? Really? Yes, really. But we still disagree. For Rob, the 1920's were Lu Xun's definitive decade. For Lee, it was the era of Ding Ling, who fired the opening salvo in what would bec...
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100 Years of Chinese Literature: 1910-1919 from 2021-01-28T12:00
Who was the most important Chinese writer of the 1910-1919 period? Was it Li Dazhao, and his experiments with prose poetry and Marxist theory? Or was it Lu Xun, with his adaptation of Russian re...
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Chinese Literature Podcast Supplement #1: Lin Shu, Inc. by Michael Gibbs-Hill from 2021-01-22T06:00
Have you ever wanted to learn more about China, but were either unsure where to start, or didn't have the money or access? Our new supplement is designed to help. Join us as we discuss our perso...
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100 Years of Chinese Literature: 1900-1909 from 2021-01-15T06:00
Here it is: part one in our new series! We're discussing the definitive writers of each decade in China's 20th century. Along the way, you'll get a mini tour of modern Chinese history, and see h...
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A Little End-of-the-Year Wrap-Up from 2020-12-25T05:21:34
We said we'd post something on the 24th, didn't we? And here it is. Just a friendly chat about some of the things that have changed for the podcast, and for us as podcasters and scholars.
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Du Mu Poem from 2020-12-21T21:56:18
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RSS Feed Announcement from 2020-12-21T21:42:45
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Interview with Mason from 2020-12-17T22:30:34
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Allah's Will from 2020-11-27T21:49:15
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Made in China, Part 4: A Bonkers Election from 2020-10-15T20:50:13
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Not Made in China, Part 3: From Angel Island with Love from 2020-10-15T20:31:54
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Voltaire and the Qianlong Emperor from 2020-09-15T20:56:03
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The Poetry of Hu Chunxiang from 2020-09-15T20:24:53
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Painted Skin from 2020-08-15T23:12:22
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The Painted Wall from 2020-07-30T03:49:52
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Interview with Antonio Leggieri from 2020-06-27T01:10:27
Today, we have a guest, Antonio Leggieri on the podcast to talk about his phd research on the late imperial novel Guzhang Juechen.
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Lian Xiang from 2020-05-26T23:58:32
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San Zi Jing from 2020-04-18T06:19:44
The ???, usually translated as the Three Character Classic, is a fascinating text because it functions like a "my first Confucian text." Children were given...
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COVID19 San Zi Jing from 2020-04-17T16:53:14
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Professor Van Norden's Classical Chinese for Everyone from 2020-01-05T21:58:47
Today, Rob is off doing research in China, so Lee interviews Professor Van Norden. Professor Van Norden is a philosophy professor at Vassar, and he works on early Ch...
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Yu Dafu - Sinking from 2019-12-11T18:25:49
Yu Dafu is an early 20th Century writer known for one work: Sinking. This novella is highly autobiographical, and it discusses the trials and tribulations of a Chinese student living in...
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Ren the Filial Son from 2019-11-11T04:30:16
The Fourth in our series on Toxic Masculinity, this is the story of a man whose wife is sleeping around, a man who is not doing a good job of taking care of his father, a man who, at least in a ...
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Jin Ping Mei - Plum in the Golden Vase from 2019-09-12T00:04:45
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Water Margin - ??? (Shui Hu Zhuan) from 2019-08-09T04:11:46
The Water Margin, or the ??? (shui hu zhuan) is one of the novels from the Ming Dynasty that we can point to as the origin of much of the Kung Fu tradition. It is the story of 108 dudes...
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Ancient Chinese Porn Literature from 2019-07-08T22:49:10
Today Brandon joins Rob and Lee for one of the weirdest stories that they have ever done. The "Biography of Lord As-You-Like-It" is a work of Ming Dynasty porn that discusses the only Empress to...
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The Tiananmen Square Massacre and Chinese Rock from 2019-06-03T06:16:02
We are posting this podcast on June 4th, 2019, the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. We have decided to focus on a song (which is just a poem, after all) that was performed for ...
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The May 4th Movement from 2019-05-03T16:00
Modern Chinese Literature begins with the May 4th Movement. Well, that's according to the orthodox understanding of Chinese literature promoted by the CCP in China. ...
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Poems from the Tiananmen Square Incident 1976 from 2019-03-06T17:00
When most folks outside of China hear of the Tiananmen Square Incident, and most people either think of the massacre that occurred in 1989. But there was an earlier incident. In 1976, people wer...
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Dumptruck Poetry - Lei Feng from 2019-02-11T17:00
Today, we look at one of the most popular writers during socialist China (1949-1976). His name is Lei Feng. He wrote poetry about dump trucks, but he was killed when...
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Li Shangyin from 2019-01-13T17:00
Today, Rob and Lee say goodbye, or, at least, say goodbye to the face to face format of podcasting. Rob has earned a Chateaubriand Scholarship to the Sorbonne in Paris, where he will be research...
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Marriage Manga from 2018-12-18T23:58:01
Today, Nick Stember, the expert on Chinese Manhua (similar to Japanese Manga), joins us as we discuss a short manhua cartoon booklet that was published in 1950. The booklet was meant to be a sim...
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Interview with Robert Delaney from 2018-11-25T23:51:53
Mencius and King Hui from 2018-10-09T12:12:40
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Ding LIng's Xia Village from 2018-10-09T11:59:06
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Mao's Yan'An Talks from 2018-09-04T12:39:03
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Yang Huang - My Old Faithful from 2018-07-16T02:18:32
Today, we get to interview a flesh-and-blood maker of Chinese literature who has recently put out a series of short stories on a fictionalized version of real Chi...
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Zhang Ailing - Sealed Off from 2018-06-23T09:37
We go back to Zhang Ailing, the author Lee claims to be the best Chinese writer of the 20th Century. Rob and Lee discuss her most anthologized work in English, Sealed Off. It is a psych...
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50th Podcast Anniversary from 2018-06-11T16:17:34
No one expected it, least of all us, but this is our 50th episode with the podcast. Today, Rob and Lee are going to celebrate just like the ancients used to....with a Top 5 Countdown! The pair w...
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F#$* Mama - Han Shaogong's Bababa from 2018-05-21T18:56:50
In this episode, we return to the Root-seeking authors (xungen), this time with Han Shaogong and his enigmatic story Bababa. The story, if you can call it that, has a disjointed plot. It is focu...
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Interview with Dylan King from 2018-05-09T17:07:41
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Buddhist Rescues Mother from Hell from 2018-04-17T17:50:59
This story, The Great Maudgalyayana Rescues his Mom from Hell, is one of the earliest in Chinese vernacular fiction. The version we are reading was found in Dunhuang by Aurel Stein, the...
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Liang Qichao from 2018-04-13T19:12:03
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Tao Yuanming's Return to the Fields and Gardens from 2018-03-09T21:04:26
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Yan'An Seeds from 2018-03-09T18:04:52
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The Book of Swindles from 2018-02-07T16:42:08
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Lao She - Cat Country from 2018-02-02T06:41:22
Welcome to Cat Country!
In 1932, Lao She, the famous Chinese writer, penned a book about a Chinese astronaut crashing into Mars and finding the planet populated with Cat People. These Ca...
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Miss Sophia's Diary from 2018-01-12T18:34:18
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Can Xue's Hut on a Mountain from 2018-01-04T19:32:24
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Zhuangzi and his Fish from 2017-12-08T19:40:36
I know you are going to like this podcast about Zhuangzi and his dumb foil for everything Huizi. In it, the pair discuss whether it is possible to know how others feel, and on what basis one can...
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The Three-Body Problem from 2017-12-07T19:40:05
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Tao Yuanming's Peach Blossom Spring from 2017-11-20T05:15:57
Tao Yuanming's Peach Blossom Spring is one of the most famous in all of Chinese literature. A fisherman wanders into a cave and stumbles upon a utopia, but leaves it all because he wants to tell...
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Lu Xun - Diary of a Madman from 2017-11-09T19:26:32
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Mang Ke's October Dedications from 2017-10-16T19:07:11
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The Book of Great Unity from 2017-08-09T14:10:16
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Uncle Tom's cabin from 2017-08-09T13:54:38
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Tangerines and Tortoise Shell from 2017-06-15T22:51:06
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People's Literature from 2017-06-15T22:01:08
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Shen Xiu's Bird from 2017-05-22T16:46:49
This week, we are getting back to our roots. Some of the earliest podcasts we did were on the huaben (??) story. The very first podcast we posted (we recorded others before, but we cann...
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Mao's Last Poem from 2017-05-15T18:21:40
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Nick Stember and Jia Pingwa's Ugly Stone from 2017-05-05T04:01
Nick Stember and Jia Pingwa's Ugly Stone
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Stephen Durrant and the Zuo Commentary from 2017-04-19T23:09:22
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Zhuangzi's Butterfly from 2017-03-22T18:30
Are you listening to the world's only Chinese Literature podcast right now? Or are you just a butterfly floating around who is dreaming that you are a human who is listening to this podcast? How...
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The Ugly Stone from 2017-03-15T21:38:23
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The Ballad of Mulan from 2017-03-08T00:27:08
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How I Mutilated a Trannie, then Fell in Love from 2017-02-22T17:00
In today's podcast, we return to the Historian of the Weird, that is the late, great Pu Songling. Previously, we did a podcast on his touching love story about a man and his rock. This time, we ...
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The Biography of Xiang Yu from 2017-02-20T20:34:46
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Journey to the West from 2017-01-10T17:21:18
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Looking Towards the Sea from 2016-12-17T05:14:28
In today's episode, we look at a specific poem by Haizi, his most famous.
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Love in a Fallen City from 2016-12-15T21:50:59
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Straight Outta the Junkyard: Ouyang Jianghe's Phoenix from 2016-10-28T19:15:02
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Tales from Under the Bean Arbor from 2016-08-25T14:48:09
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A Man and His Rock from 2016-08-25T14:46:22
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High Plains Drifter: Li Shangyin from 2016-08-05T10:13:51
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The Big Bang of Modern Chinese Literature?: Discussing the May 4th Movement from 2016-06-28T18:07:11
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A Male Mencius' Mother from 2016-06-28T18:00:18
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Moonstruck: Wandering the Galaxy with Li Bai from 2016-06-03T17:35:39
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Grief in a Fallen City: Du Fu's Ever-Present Histories from 2016-06-03T15:40:23
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'Cause I'm the Taxman: The Voyages of Yu Gong from 2016-05-29T20:17:25
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Emperor Shen's New Groove: Song Dynasty Exam Reform and Modern Chinese Exam Culture from 2016-05-19T19:37:02
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How to be A/Political: The Seven Books of the Sun from 2016-05-09T18:00:33
The great romantic martyr of contemporary Chinese poetry, who killed himself at the age of 25 in 1989, Hai Zi is one of the most studied, recited, and well-known poets of the 20th century in Chi...
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Narration and Revolution: The True Story of Ah Q from 2016-05-04T02:55:26
How does a low-life moron become one of the great tragic figures
in modern Chinese culture? Lu Xun's 1921 novella The True
Story of Ah Q, a masterpiece of the May 4th Movement, presents ...
Censure and Celebration: Jiang Xingge Re-Encounters His Pearl Shirt from 2016-04-09T20:19:42
One of the most acclaimed ?? (hua ben - vernacular short stories) in Feng Menglong's 1620 collection Stories Old and New (tr. Yang Shuhui and Yang Yunqin). We discuss the question of irony in a ...
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Tower for the Summer Heat from 2016-04-06T04:51:18
Here we talk about telescopes, gods, and the peculiar anxiety that results when a foreign civilization circumvents established domestic social rules.
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