Author：Ning An, Tingting Zhang

Abstract: From 1932 to 1933, Cheng Yanqiu traveled to Europe to study theatre, making systematic observations of European theatre institutions, stage techniques, theatre education, and modern theatrical trends. Previous discussions of this tour have largely focused on how Western theatrical experiences influenced the reform of Chinese Xiqu (traditional theatre). However, its deeper significance lies in how Cheng Yanqiu gained a renewed understanding of Chinese Xiqu through the development of world theatre. In the course of his European journey, by absorbing modern theatre mechanisms while reaffirming the ontological value of Xiqu, Cheng Yanqiu gradually developed a view of Xiqu’s development that balanced traditional resources with modern demands. His European experience thus represented the process through which Chinese Xiqu reasserted its position within the global theatre landscape. From this, one can glimpse the complex pathway of constructing the modernity of Chinese Xiqu ...

Column：Documentation and Research on the History of Sino-Foreign Theatre Exchange over the Past Century (Column for Achievements of Major Projects Supported by the National Social Science Fund of China)   3-12   Details

Author：Minna Jin

Abstract: Traditional Chinese opera during the “Seventeen Years” period (1949–1966) shoulders the dual mission of international cultural exchange and dissemination of mainstream value. Focusing on the translation and international dissemination of traditional Chinese Opera during this period, this paper examines the dynamic interplay between political discourse and aesthetic expression. Political discourse is deeply embedded throughout the translation process of traditional Chinese Opera, extending from repertoire selection and institutional frameworks to translation strategies. Meanwhile, undergoes both loss and adaptation. Regarding overseas reception, differences in audiences’ ideological perspectives and cultural background lead to the emergence of two distinct reception pathways: “conceptual empathy” and “aesthetic spectacle.” The government provides institutional...

Column：Documentation and Research on the History of Sino-Foreign Theatre Exchange over the Past Century (Column for Achievements of Major Projects Supported by the National Social Science Fund of China)   13-24   Details

Author：Lianqiao Zhang, Fengqi Wu

Abstract: An aesthetic gap exists between traditional Chinese opera and foreign cultural contexts. The overseas dissemination of Cheng Ying Rescues the Orphan, a classic of Yu opera, displays the tension between localization and de-localization strategies. This paper analyzes these dual dissemination paths: localization through the transformation of the theme into the universal motif of good versus evil and through moderate adjustments of artistic form, and de-localization through preservation of theatrical integrity and the Chinese national spirit. Drawing upon Roland Robertson’s glocalization theory and Edward W. Said’s Orientalism, this study delineates the boundaries between these two forces and proposes a sustainable communication strategy that preserves artistic integrity while facilitating cross-cultural dialogue. The findings provide a theoretical reference and a practical model for the global promotion of traditional Chinese opera.

Column：   25-34   Details

Author：Yanxia Long

Abstract: The stage play Pingtan Impression undertakes a contemporary translation of cultural symbols of Nuo culture in Fujian Province and constructs an ethical narrative system with benevolence, filial piety, righteousness and loyalty. This article, based on Confucian philosophy, divides the four relationships into a three-layer concentric circle structure according to distance and closeness. Benevolence is the emotional center, filial piety is the first circle of the family, righteousness belongs to the second circle of society, and loyalty belongs to the outer circle of politics and faith. On this basis, it analyzes the ethical positioning and translation paths of Nuo images in the play. The concentric circle, with...

Column：Documentation and Research on the History of Sino-Foreign Theatre Exchange over the Past Century (Column for Achievements of Major Projects Supported by the National Social Science Fund of China)   35-43   Details

Author：Maosheng Liu, Yongqi Li

Abstract: This paper focuses on Guan Hanqing’s Yuan zaju Rescue from the Wind and Dust, examining the cross-cultural adaptation practice of its 2021 adaptation at the Almeida Theatre in London, UK. The paper outlines the journey of Rescue from the Wind and Dust from textual translation to stage adaptations both domestically and internationally, with an emphasis on the changes in stage design, performance methods, characters, and plot in the adaptation by the Almeida Theatre. By integrating the Chinese narrative into western audiences’ familiar aesthetic and cognitive framework, the adaptation lowers the barrier to reception and promotes cultural exchange. However, it also reflects the influence of box-office considerations and sociocultural factors, reducing the East to the consumable Other. Studying the British adaptation with reference to the original Chinese version help...

Column：Documentation and Research on the History of Sino-Foreign Theatre Exchange over the Past Century (Column for Achievements of Major Projects Supported by the National Social Science Fund of China)   44-53   Details

Author：Yuan Wang

Abstract: Antropofagia is one of the most influential legacies of Brazilian modernism. Its genealogy can be traced to colonial discourses on cannibalism, and it gradually took shape through nineteenth-century Indianist writing and the radical revaluation undertaken by the modernists of the 1920s. Subsequently, it expanded into poetry, theater, music, film, translation, anthropology, and digital culture, constantly renewing its functions across changing contexts. The enduring vitality of antropofagia derives from an open structure that transforms external forces into resources for self-renewal. At the same time, this extensibility also faces such risks as reverse appropriation by capital and the culture industry, conceptual overextension, and the obscuring of internal asymmetries of power.

Column：Key Concepts in Latin American Culture (Column on the Literary and Cultural Landscape of the Global South)   56-66   Details

Author：Yishuang Guo

Abstract: Animality is a key concept for examining human–animal boundaries, colonial power, and biopolitics in Latin American literature and culture. Its intellectual origins can be traced to European philosophy’s definition of the rational subject. During the colonial process in the Americas, however, it was transformed into a mechanism of governance that distinguished civilization from barbarism. Nineteenth-century national literatures continued and reworked this logic, while from the twentieth century onward, animality has gradually become a critical resource for questioning anthropocentrism and the modern sovereign subject. The writings of Roger Bartra, Gabriel Giorgi, Mónica Cragnolini, and ...

Column：Key Concepts in Latin American Culture (Column on the Literary and Cultural Landscape of the Global South)   67-76   Details

Author：Jie Yuan

Abstract: Orfeo is Richard Powers’s third science novel on genetic technology. It carries on with the transhumanist anxieties about technology found in his two earlier “genetic novels,” while also articulating a more affirmative vision of posthuman forms of life and relationality. Beginning with the affective function of music and art education, the novel reveals how art, like DNA, participates in encoding the life of the protagonist, Els, thereby presenting the dual and unified nature of art and technology at the level of techne. By rethinking the essence of technology, Powers proposes a relational understanding of technology that challenges the instrumental view, responding to the posthuman condition of human–nonhuman coexistence in the technological age. On this basis, the novel constructs a relational posthuman subjectivity, reconsiders the relationship between the self and the ...

Column：Literary Interdisciplinary Studies   77-85   Details

Author：Xi Xi, Yutong Zhang

Abstract: A Brief History of Seven Killings, written by Jamaican American novelist Marlon James, centers on the attempted assassination of reggae icon Bob Marley, tracing over three decades of political shifts in Jamaica, with reggae music functioning as a central symbolic thread throughout the novel. Through an analysis of the intricate interplay between the spectral figure Sir Jennings and reggae，this study reveals the implicit transformation of colonial power and the gradual erosion of imperial discourse. The novel’s narrative...

Column：Literary Interdisciplinary Studies   86-96   Details

Author：Tianyu Luan

Abstract: The representation of elderly female characters in Saul Bellow’s works, shaped by the intersection of sexism and ageism, constitutes a form of double otherness through which the age ideology of modern society and the predicament of female subjectivity can be critically examined. From the perspective of literary gerontology, this study investigates the shifting identities of elderly women in Bellow’s The Adventures of Augie March across three dimensions: familial power structures, social age order, and self-perception. These elderly women reconstructs their subjectivity through bodily practices and emotional memories, thereby resisting and transcending the dominant decline narrative of aging. ...

Column：Literary Interdisciplinary Studies   97-105   Details