With the support from Taiwan’s Ministry of Culture, the Taiwan Academy of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Los Angeles partners with UCLA’s Center for Chinese Studies (CCS) on the Spotlight Taiwan Project this year, featuring “Taiwan in Dialogue” lecture/dialogue series online. The first event “Reading The Story of the Stone with Pai Hsien-Yung and Susan Chan Egan” will be held at 8:00 pm PST on February 26, 2021. The well-known writer Pai Hsien-Yung and independent scholar Susan Chan Egan will be invited in dialogue with Michael Berry, Director of CCS, through Zoom while simultaneously livestreaming on CCS’s YouTube channel and Facebook. Viewers are welcome to register online at https://ucla.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_PiCyy_8tRtm0Q49u0KPWRA.
As a noted writer and playwright, Pai Hsien-Yung is a professor emeritus of East Asian languages and cultural studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His books include Taipei People (1971) and Crystal Boys (1983). Some of his works have been translated into French, English and other languages. His efforts in revitalizing traditional Chinese opera have given birth to “The Peony Pavilion: Young Lover's Edition” in 2004, which has received great acclaim and toured in many countries, such as the United States and Europe. Pai has taught Dream of the Red Chamber (also called The Story of the Stone) for decades and is the author of the three-volume reader Pai Hsien-Yung on Dream of the Red Chamber. In 2018, he compiled Essays and Sources: Dream of the Red Chamber and co-authored Dreams and Illusions in the Red Chamber: The Structure of Myth in Dream of the Red Chamber in 2020. As an independent scholar, Susan Chan Egan co-authored A Pragmatist and His Free Spirit: The Half-Century Romance of Hu Shi and Edith Clifford Williams with Chou Chih-ping and co-translated with Michael Berry Wang Anyi’s The Song of Everlasting Sorrow: A Novel of Shanghai.
Over the past four years, Pai has worked closely with Susan Chan Egan to condense his three-volume Chinese reader, Pai Hsien-Yung on Dream of the Red Chamber, into a single volume English-language guide, A Companion to The Story of the Stone: A Chapter-By-Chapter Guide, adding comments that might prove useful to English readers. In correspondence with its publication in 2021, this event will discuss the history and the lasting cultural impact of the Chinese novel Dream of the Red Chamber with Pai Hsien-Yung and Susan Chan Egan.
Initiated by Taiwan’s Ministry of Culture in 2013, the Spotlight Taiwan Project seeks to establish long-term relationships with global professional art and culture organizations, and leading universities to host diverse events to cultivate greater understanding and appreciation of Taiwan’s culture in the international community. This year in collaboration with CCS, the "Taiwan in Dialogue” Lecture/Dialogue Series comprises eight online events from February to November. Leading practitioners from a variety of Taiwan’s creative areas, including film, literature, theater, and art, will be invited to deliberate on the contemporary Taiwan culture. For further information about the Series, please follow CCS’s website www.international.ucla.edu/ccs/home, Facebook www.facebook.com/uclaccs, and Youtube www.youtube.com/user/UCLAccs/featured.
Press Contact:
Vivian Wang, Cultural Officer
Tel: (213) 403-0168 #103; Email: vivianpink1206@moc.gov.tw
