季風人文講壇 JF SALON
季風人文講壇2026年8月活動
JF Salon Announcement of August
八月的季風人文講壇，圍繞翻譯、歷史記憶、民族認同與數位時代的自由展開一系列跨語言的對話：譯者 錢佳楠 與 Alyssa Asquith 帶來朱岳《催眠師》英譯的幕後故事，探討當代中文奇想文學如何跨越語言的邊界；中文場則有 賴恩典 分享《激流者和逆流者》；
歷史學者 Emily Matson(馬愛美) 從「還我河山」出發，重探滿洲學者如何改寫中國的二戰時間線；記者、紀錄片工作者 Neal E. Robbins 以《台灣無畏》描繪台灣民主的興起與未竟的未來；東京大學博士、神戶大學名譽教授 王柯 追問中國如何「從『民族』想像『國家』」，以及民族主義背後的多數暴力；
多倫多大學講座教授 Lynette Ong 揭示中國如何將網絡監控與舆論管理外包給市場；資深記者、小說家 Simon Elegant 則以小說《City on Fire》回望 2019 年的香港。這些對談共同叩問：在語言、歷史、國家與技術的多重框架之下，個人與社群如何理解自身、記憶過去，並想像另一種可能。
This August, JF Salon turns to translation, historical memory, the making of national identity, and freedom in the digital age. Across literature, wartime history, democracy, nationalism, surveillance, and the fate of a city, this month’s conversations ask how individuals and societies move between languages, contest official narratives, and imagine who they are — and what freedom of thought and belonging remain possible across the boundaries of nation, technology, and tongue.
August 13th, Thursday, 6:00–7:30 PM｜In English ![Masters of Sleep and Other Stories book cover]()
A Night with the Translators of Zhu Yue’s Masters of Sleep & Other Stories
As the Shanghai Review of Books puts it, Zhu Yue thinks like a sage and writes like a brat. Known for his philosophical inquiry and imaginative lyricism, Zhu Yue has been a pioneer of funny, surrealist, and smart Chinese literature for decades. But how do you translate the language of such a luminary? Join translators Jianan Qian and Alyssa Asquith for a reading and conversation on Zhu Yue’s first book translated into English, Masters of Sleep & Other Stories. Listen to how Jianan and Alyssa adapted Zhu Yue’s distinct mind into a foreign vocabulary, and learn about the importance of translating global literatures.
About the Speakers
Alyssa Asquith is a writer from Massachusetts. Her stories have appeared in The Adroit Journal, X-R-A-Y, HAD, Atticus Review, Okay Donkey, and elsewhere. She has an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.
Jianan Qian 錢佳楠 is a bilingual writer from Shanghai. In Chinese, she has published four original works. In English, her work has appeared in The New York Times, Granta, Guernica, and The Los Angeles Times, among others. She teaches creative writing at Towson University in Maryland.
Moderator: Van Choojitarom is a writer, professor, and former Buddhist monk. His work has appeared in the Oxford American, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and inboxes everywhere. He has an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.
本場對談將以朱岳《催眠師》（Masters of Sleep & Other Stories）的英譯為核心，邀請譯者錢佳楠與 Alyssa Asquith 分享翻譯當代中文奇想與超現實文學的經驗，探討如何在異語言中重現作家獨特的思維與聲音，以及翻譯全球文學的意義。
August 14th, Friday, 6:00–7:30 PM｜In Chinese ![激流者和逆流者 書封]()
《激流者和逆流者》分享會
本場為中文場活動，邀請作者賴恩典分享其作品《激流者和逆流者》，與現場讀者一同閱讀、對談，交流創作背後的思考與故事。
講者簡介
賴恩典，《激流者和逆流者》作者。（講者簡介待補）
This is a Chinese-language event. Author Lai Endian shares his book Torrent-Riders and Counter-Current Swimmers in a reading and conversation with the audience, exploring the thinking and stories behind the work.
August 18th, Tuesday, 6:00–7:30 PM｜In English ![China's Date Debate book cover]()
還我河山 Return Our Mountains and Rivers: Manchurian Scholars and China’s New World War II Timeline
As of 2017, the official timeline for the War of Resistance against Japan (China’s World War II) in the People’s Republic of China was set at 14 years, beginning with the Mukden Incident (September 18, 1931) instead of the Marco Polo Bridge Incident (July 7, 1937). Although tempting to view this as a top-down decision from Beijing, the 2017 decision was influenced by decades of Manchurian scholarship. In her book China’s Date Debate, Dr. Emily Matson recenters these scholars and the “date debate” among Chinese historians over the war timeline. Her work recenters Manchuria and this new World War II timeline as critically important for both the Chinese Communist Party’s domestic legitimacy and its global image.
About the Speaker
Dr. Emily Matson 馬愛美 is an adjunct professor in Georgetown University’s Department of History and received her PhD in modern Chinese history from the University of Virginia. She spent several years living in Beijing and Shanghai, where she studied Mandarin Chinese and conducted fieldwork for her dissertation. Her research interests include Manchuria, World War II, nationalism, and Sino-Japanese relations, and she was recently a fellow with the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Project on the Future of U.S.–China Relations.
本場講座將以《China’s Date Debate》一書為核心，探討中國官方為何將抗日戰爭的時間線由八年改為十四年，以及滿洲學者數十年的研究如何影響這一決定。講座亦將重探滿洲與這條新的二戰時間線，如何同時關乎中國共產黨的國內正當性與全球形象。
August 20th, Thursday, 6:00–7:30 PM｜In English ![Taiwan Undaunted book cover]()
Taiwan: Flourishing Democracy Meets Uncertain Future
Taiwan Undaunted, the book (and eponymous documentary), explores the emergence of Taiwan’s nationhood, identity, and challenges from colonial and dynastic times to its democratic awakening. Drawing on 80 in-depth interviews conducted across the island, it blends anecdote and analysis to reveal how Taiwanese see themselves. The talk summarizes key findings, focusing on how Taiwan is more than a land in limbo — it has become a mover and a shaker with a flourishing democracy. But Taiwan’s hopes and dreams are bound up with China in contrary ways, causing tensions that test Taiwanese resolve and global, especially U.S., commitments to freedom and peaceful conflict resolution.
About the Speaker
Neal E. Robbins is a freelance journalist and documentary maker. Formerly a foreign correspondent in Hong Kong, New Delhi, Taipei, London, and Washington, he studied Chinese in Taiwan in the 1970s and taught journalism at National Taiwan University in the 1990s. He returned to Taiwan in 2023–24 as an NTU visiting scholar. He lives in Cambridge, England, with his family.
（本場活動與飛地合作。）
本場講座以《台灣無畏》（Taiwan Undaunted: In Search of the Nation That Cannot Call Itself a Nation）為核心，透過八十場深度訪談，呈現台灣如何從殖民與王朝時代走向民主覺醒，以及台灣的希望與夢想如何與中國以矛盾的方式緊緊相繫。
August 25th, Tuesday, 6:00–7:30 PM｜In Chinese ![從「民族」想像「國家」書封]()
從「民族」想像「國家」：當代中國的多數暴力
從清末的「驅除韃虜，恢復中華」，到二十一世紀的「中華民族偉大復興」，中國被結構性地鎖定在「從『民族』想像『國家』」思維模式的魔咒之中。那麼，中國為什麼從「天下」走到了「民族」的國家？東亞的「民族」與世界史意義上的 nation 有哪些不同？中國民族主義與日本有哪些關係？「民族」的思想為何會帶來多數暴力？有無擺脫民族主義束縛之路呢？
講者簡介
王柯，東京大學博士，神戶大學名譽教授，現任史丹佛大學中國經濟制度研究中心 Skyline Scholar，主要研究民族主義、民族問題與中日關係。著有《亦師亦友亦敵》、《消失的「國民」》、《中國：從天下到民族國家》、《東突厥斯坦共和國研究》等。
本場講座將梳理中國近代以來民族主義思想的形成與轉折，並反思其如何導向多數暴力，以及是否仍存在超越民族主義束縛的思想出路。
This Chinese-language talk traces how modern China became structurally locked into imagining the “nation” as the basis of the “state,” from the late-Qing slogan of “expelling the barbarians” to the twenty-first-century call for “national rejuvenation.” Wang Ke asks how East Asian ideas of minzu differ from the Western concept of the nation, why such thinking can give rise to majoritarian violence, and whether there is a path beyond the constraints of nationalism.
August 27th, Thursday, 6:00–7:30 PM｜In English ![Outsourcing Surveillance book cover]()
Outsourcing Surveillance: Online Opinion Management in China
What makes China’s online censorship so effective? Lynette Ong argues that its power springs not from the party-state’s own bureaucratic capacity, but from its ability to co-opt market forces. What began as the rumored “fifty-cent army” has grown into a profit-making industry, as Chinese Communist Party committees and government agencies outsource digital surveillance and opinion management to private firms. These companies detect “sensitive” words, flood platforms with propaganda, and suppress troublesome posts with a technical precision the state lacks on its own. As surveillance becomes more precise and preemptive — and as long as businesses find it profitable to collaborate — society will struggle to find a counterweight to this market-enhanced digital repression.
About the Speaker
Lynette Ong is Distinguished Professor of Chinese Politics at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and the author of four books. Her 2022 book, Outsourcing Repression: Everyday State Power in Contemporary China (Oxford University Press), has won multiple accolades. Her research has been featured in The Economist, the New York Times editorial board opinion pages, The New Yorker, Foreign Affairs, and The Washington Post.
本場講座將探討中國網絡審查的真正運作邏輯：它的成效並非來自黨國的行政能力，而是來自將監控與舆論管理外包給市場上的私人企業。從傳說中的「五毛」到如今的營利產業，監控變得更為精確而先發制人，而社會則難以找到抑衡這種「市場化數位壓制」的力量。
August 28th, Friday, 6:00–7:30 PM｜In English ![City on Fire book cover]()
City on Fire: A Novel About Surviving in Hong Kong
Fiction can’t predict the future, but it can insist on complexity when headlines demand simplicity. Simon Elegant’s novel City on Fire opens in the summer of 2019, when tear gas and uncertainty became part of Hong Kong’s daily rhythm. The protests revealed fractures that won’t heal easily, but they also revealed a stubborn, creative resilience. Hong Kong has been written off before, yet has always surprised the doomsayers by bouncing back. This talk uses the novel as a lens to examine a community in crisis — and to ask what the future could hold for what one writer has described as the “indelible city.”
About the Speaker
Simon Elegant is an award-winning journalist and novelist. Until 2026, he was China Bureau Chief for The Washington Post, having earlier served in the same role for TIME magazine. His most recent novel, City on Fire, is a mystery set in Hong Kong during the anti-government protests of 2019. Publishers Weekly praised it as a bruising thriller that strikes a balance between tension and emotional depth.
本場講座以小說《City on Fire》為透鏡，回到 2019 年夏天催淚斯與不確定成為香港日常的那段時光，透過虛構的複雜性重新審視一座處於危機中的城市，並追問這座「難以磨滅的城市」的未來。
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