港大中文學院

School of Chinese Seminar

The Chinese Origin of the Steamboat: Global Navigation and Lost Technology in Wang Tao’s Tales about Overseas Travel

蒸汽船的中源西流: 王韜域外遊故事中的環球航行與失傳科技

Dr. Wang Shengyu 王勝宇博士 (Netherlands Institute of Advanced Study)

Date: September 5, 2024 (Thursday)

Time: 11:00 - 12:30 pm

Venue: Room 7.30, Run Run Shaw Tower, Centennial Campus, HKU

Language: English

Registration link:

https://hku.au1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3wmgsbce94jsMPY

Abstract:

This talk draws attention to neglected cases where late Qing fiction and modern transportation history converge. It examines some of the earliest Chinese stories about global travel by steamship, published by reformist thinker Wang Tao in the 1880s. Countering the conventional view that a didactic agenda underpins the stories’ frequent reference to Western learning, I underscore the allegorical significance of new technologies that are equally integral to the plot. My talk will particularly focus on Wang Tao’s characterization of the steamboat as a lost ancient Chinese invention, preserved and subsequently advanced by Westerners. Beyond contextualizing this fictional origin into late nineteenth-century discourses on the Sino-West relationship, I further relate it to a unifying force prevailing in the author’s vision of an ideal world, in order to offer new perspectives on the much-discussed issue of Wang Tao’s utopian fantasy. Through this talk, I aim to contribute to a fuller understanding of how late Qing fiction responds creatively to the interconnected challenges of an accelerating time-space compression and the collapse of a Sinocentric world order.

本次報告試對晚清小說與現代交通史進行交叉研究，探討的文本是思想改革先驅王韜創作於十九世紀八十年代的域外遊故事，這些文本是中國文學中較早反映乘坐蒸汽船環遊世界的作品。學界通常認為，出於傳播新知的目的，王韜在傳統文言小說敘事中刻意融入了先進的西學知識。在報告中，我將討論該詮釋角度的局限性，並闡述以蒸汽船為代表的新興科技在王韜小說中發揮的關鍵作用和蘊含的深刻寓意。此次報告將重點分析王韜作品中暗指蒸汽船失傳於中土而流行於泰西的情節。我將結合晚清知識分子有關中西關係的討論，在歷史語境中對這些情節進行還原解讀。此外，我還將從一個新的角度審視備受學者關注的王韜桃源想像議題，深入探討作者如何通過上述情節在小說中樹立凝聚他大同理想的“道”。有鑑於時空的加速壓縮和天下觀的式微對晚清知識分子的世界觀產生了強烈衝擊，本次報告有助於學者更加全面地思考晚清小說如何創造性地回應這些劇烈變革。

About the Speaker:

WANG Shengyu specializes in early modern Chinese literature and has research interests in the Chinese tradition of recording the strange, vernacular religions, visual culture, and translation studies. Holding a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Chicago, he is presently a research fellow at the Netherlands Institute of Advanced Study. His recent peer-reviewed publications were featured in international journals including Comparative Literature, T’oung Pao, Sunkyun Journal of East Asian Studies, and Folklore. He is the 2022 prize winner of Stephen C. Soong Translation Studies Memorial Award.

王勝宇致力於古代文學的研究，重點關注的研究領域包括志怪傳奇、民間宗教、視覺文化和翻譯史。他從芝加哥大學比較文學系博士畢業, 目前在荷蘭高等研究院從事研究。他近期發表的同行評審論文刊登於《比較文學》、《通報》、《成均東亞研究》和《民俗學》等國際期刊。他於2022年度榮獲香港中文大學授予的宋淇翻譯研究論文紀念獎。

All are welcome