Reading and Discussion with Lung Ying-Tai:"How the Wild Changed Me—a Philosophical Journey"
Reading with the writer and former Minister of Culture of Taiwan Lung Ying-Tai and her translator Monika Li
Dates & Venues
This event will take place at various locations of the Joint Center Worldmaking:
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October 23 18:00 |
Universität Würzburg, Zentralen Hörsaal- und Seminargebäude, Z6, Hörsaal 0.001 |
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October 24 18:00 |
Universität Tübingen. Keplerstr. 2, Hörsaal 001, |
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October 25 18:00 |
Universität Heidelberg, CATS Auditorium |
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October 26 19:00 |
Universität Göttingen, Platz der Göttinger Sieben 4, ZHG 002 |
Speakers
Lung Ying-Tai und Monika Li (translator)
About
An unsuccessful writer is sent by her Buddhist master to the foot of Mount Kavulungan in southern Taiwan for two years so that her restless nature can find peace there while observing nature, people and animals. When she meets a mysterious fourteen-year-old girl, she embarks on an adventure to the mysteries of Mount Kavulungan, the namesake mountain of Taiwanese author Lung Ying-tai's most recent book release. In 84 episodes, she tells a ghost story, a crime story, a love story, and more, taking her readers on a philosophical journey that leads into Taiwan's nature, history, traditions, and society. In conversation with members of the Worldmaking Team and Monika LI (translator), Taiwan's most famous author will discuss her socially critical reflections on zeitgeist, experiences of lifeworlds as well as her own biographical journey and the multiple roles of an author in contemporary Taiwan. Traditionally, Chinese intellectuals have taken several possible positions, that of serving the country/ruler as a chenshi 臣仕 / guan 官; that of critiquing the ruler directly, from outside the bureaucracy or from inside, as the official censor (who may then be risiking to lose his job, thus being/becoming the “pure official” qingguan 清官) and, thirdly, that of the critic from afar—only seemingly a “silent loner”—who is so abominated by the abuses of power that he is no longer willing to “wag his tail in human dirt,” a metaphor from Zhuangzi, a famous Chinese philosopher who lived around the 4th century BCE. Lung Ying-tai has taken on all three of these positions, and with her latest book—which will be the basis for the conversation and from which we will hear excerpts—moved from enfant terrible to minister to become the “silent loner”: Why?
Talk in English, reading in German