The Research Centre for Luso-Asian Studies (CIELA) is pleased to invite all those interested to the Webinar ‘ROBINSON CRUSOE IN TRANSIT. Re-location (Translations)in China and as a Historical Episode in Brazil’, comprising of two guest talks followed by a Q & A session. The session will be conducted in English.

ABSTRACTS

The Re-location of Robinson Crusoe in China: Global Context and Local Dynamics

Prof. Ren Haiyan

(Hunan Normal University)

Robinson Crusoe is more than a myth of modern individualism as Ian Watt labels. It is an embodiment of the Enlightenment ideology. When this modern myth first arrived in China via Japan at the turn of the 20^th century, it has been intentionally appropriated. This paper examines several translations in the early 20^th century to reflect on how, in an attempt to continue the Chinese tradition of wenren (literati), these translated discourses are expected to contribute to the renewal and transformation of society in a painful period of transition. Meanwhile, this examination offers a glimpse of how translation has become a powerful contributor to the establishment of China’s academic discipline of foreign literature studies.

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The historical significance of the Brazilian episode in Robinson Crusoe

Prof. Sandra Vasconcelos

(University of São Paulo)

My presentation explores the Brazilian episode in Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719). It argues that this episode not only plays a pivotal role in the novel’s plot, as it ends up in disaster and Crusoe’s shipwreck, but also has historical significance once it offers a glimpse of the transnational and transcontinental nature of the slave trade in the South Atlantic, involving Portugal, England, and Brazil.

Speakers CVs: https://ciela.fah.um.edu.mo/category/activities/

ZOOM Link: https://umac.zoom.us/j/92330947208