Contemporary Asian Spy Literature and Cinema
Virtual Session
Description
This panel invites papers on contemporary Asian spy literature and cinema from the late 20th century to the present. The enigmatic and dangerous espionage world in literature and cinema is always fascinating to readers and audiences. Many Asian spy fictions and films are not only popular in their respective countries but are also translated into many other languages and well received in the world. For example, mainland Chinese novelist Mai Jia’s spy novel Decoded (解密 Jiemi, 2002) has been translated into more than 30 languages. Mai Jia’s another spy novel The Message (风声Fengsheng, 2007) has been adapted into a film, two TV series, and a stage production in China, and made into a film in South Korea. Another example is South Korean novelist Kim Young-ha’s spy novel Your Republic Is Calling You (빛의 제국Bichui jeguk, 2006), which has been translated into many languages. A spy work, literary or cinematic, has an overt espionage story with suspense, deception, a double life, enigmatic spy agent characters, unpredicted twists, and historical and political turmoil. However, despite its social, political, or historical circumstances or contents, a good spy fiction or film always has psychological, ethical, or philosophical depth. Our panel aims to explore the covert agenda in the narratives of espionage in fiction and cinema. We also welcome studies on contemporary theatrical productions about espionage.
Schedule
Papers
Speaker Bio
Dr. Kaby Wing-Sze Kung is an Assistant Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the School of Arts and Social Sciences, and the Director of the Research Institute for Digital Culture and Humanities at Hong Kong Metropolitan University. Her research interests include Chinese Feminism, Chinese-Western Comparative Literature, Modern and Contemporary Chinese Literature and Film, Chinese Diasporic Writing and Film, and Digital Humanities. She is the editor of Reconceptualizing the Digital Humanities in Asia: New Representations of Art, History, and Culture (2020).
Speaker Bio
Neil Wright is professor emeritus of Humanities at Eastern Kentucky University, where he also served for two decades as Director of International Education (1993-2012). There he taught interdisciplinary courses in Humanities and in the Honors Program. His interests include Shakespeare studies, modern and postmodern transnational fiction, and opera as a mirror of Western culture. He has published critical articles on Shakespeare’s plays, on fiction by Gao Xingjian, Mo Yan, Junichiro Tanizaki, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Orhan Pamuk, Salman Rushdie, and Haruki Murakami, and on the haiku of Kobayashi Issa.
Speaker Bio
Dr. Wenyang Zhai teaches at University of Iowa and her research interest include Chinese Diaspora Literature and Sinophone Cinema.
Speaker Bio
Papers
Speaker Bio
Lily LI, PhD in Comparative Literature at Indiana University Bloomington, is currently Adjunct Professor teaching Chinese and Humanities at Eastern Kentucky University, USA. She has published extensively on Chinese literature and film, theater, and comparative literature. Her two most recent critical studies are published in the edited volumes Performance Arts: Research in the Age of Digital Revolution (edited by Kwok-kan Tam, Springer, Aug 2023) and Teaching Cinema from People’s Republic of China: MLA Options for Teaching (Edited by Zhuoyi Wang et al, MLA, Mar 2024). She is co-editor of the edited volume entitled The Diasporic Chinese: Writer-Artists Reimagining the Self Beyond and Without China (the book is currently under review by Routledge).
Speaker Bio
Fei Shi is professor of English in the English Department at Douglas College in Vancouver Canada. His teaching and research interests are: history of drama and transnational performances, film studies, contemporary racialized women and queer writers, and Chinese language and culture. He is extremely grateful to live and work on Nex̱wlélex̱m – the land of the traditional unceded territory of the Coast Salish peoples, including the Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh nations.
Speaker Bio
Bangce Cheng is a PhD candidate in comparative literature and Asian studies at Penn State University. His main research interests are modern and contemporary Sinophone literature, translation studies, and ecocriticism.