Program Results

Introduction to the event

Professor Kwok Kou Leonard Chan was the recipient of the 11th Academia Sinica Award for Scholarly Monographs in the Humanities and Social Sciences for his work Discourses on Chinese Lyrical Tradition and Literary Historiography. The Award is bestowed by Academia Sinica to incentivize scholars to author and publish book monographs in the realm of humanities and social sciences that undertake profound investigations into academic inquiries, thereby rendering significant contributions and enhancing the substantial scholarly and intellectual reservoir.

The main focus of this book monograph lies in addressing pertinent issues within the “Chinese lyrical tradition.” Through a reflective dialectic, it engages in a dialogue between this discourse and literary history, thereby unveiling the “poetic sentiment” underlying literary texts and the “historical consciousness” within literary history, revealing their intricate interconnectedness.

Professor Chan’s book monograph focuses on how Chen Shih-Hsiang (1912-1971) and Kao Yu-Kung (1929-2016) developed the discourse on “Chinese lyrical tradition.” It further examines the scholarly works of Czechoslovak Sinologist Juroslav Průšek (1906-1980), scrutinizing how a literary researcher who embraced socialism and was adept at structural theories became captivated by the lyricism embedded in both classical and modern Chinese literature. The book reconfigures the conception of Chinese lyrical tradition and connects the discourse with modern literary historiography as exemplified by works of Lin Geng, Hu Lancheng, and Sima Changfeng. It spans through academic traditions of the Continental Europe, North America and the Mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, and exhibits the dynamics and diversity of the relevant discourses in relation to the comparative study of Chinese literature.

Professor Kwok Kou Leonard was awarded the 11th Academia Sinica Award for Scholarly Monographs in the Humanities and Social Sciences.

The awarded monograph: Discourses on Chinese Lyrical Tradition and Literary Historiography.