Transcultural Perspectives on Republican Shanghai: A Comparative Study of Chinese and European Literary Manifestations

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My project will investigate the phenomenon of cultural intermingling in Republican-era Shanghaireflected in literary translation and creation of Chinese and European authors. I consider modernShanghai as a 'contact zone' (Mary Louise Pratt, 1991) where local and foreign writers (e.g. ZhangRuogu, Zhou Shoujuan, Tian Han, Mu Shiying, George Soulié de Morant, André Malraux and Emily Hahn)act as transcultural agents, an approach that has rarely been adopted by academics. Previous studies byLeo Ou-Fan Lee and Zhang Yingjing analyse how modern Shanghai is represented in Chinese literatureand culture. However, few of these are based on sources external to China; exoticised representations ofShanghai by local Chinese authors are still neglected in the literature. Although studies by Peng Hsiaoyen and Chen Shuo-win approach the transcultural phenomena in Republican Shanghai, they are mostlylimited to the Chinese authors' criticism and imitation of French literature, without considering theirsubjective sensibilities as expressed through literary creations.My project seeks to answer two principal research questions: how is the phenomenon of transculturalismpresented in Chinese and European writers' literary works? What is the role of translation in producingculturally hybrid works? My thesis is that investigating cultural hybridity in Republican Shanghai asmanifested in literary translation and creation by Chinese and European authors is key to overcoming thenotion of cultures as 'sealed boxes' (Giffard, 2016), showing how similar human experiences can be andgaining a more nuanced understanding of Republican Shanghai from authors with different culturalbackgrounds