KU Leuven, Belgium
1-3rd Jul 2025
Deadline: 20th Feb 2025
From antiquity to the present, rarely has a topic been discussed as widely in China as revenge. Literature, philosophy, law, theater, cinema, and many more fields have dealt with revenge for over two millennia and continue to negotiate it to this day. While in philosophical texts often
described as governed by ritual and specific rules, revenge can likewise be rampant, brutal, and used to defy social and political expectations, as found in Chinese novels and contemporary movies. Folk tales portray outlaws as heroes for taking revenge, whereas lawful state servants become the target of the joke. Conversely, the Triads operate outside the boundaries of the law, while their actions strictly conform to their self-imposed ritual codices, such as when and how to take revenge. And Chinese opera and theater have long used revenge for entertainment, while in recent years consumers have used entertainment products for revenge buying. Revenge can clearly be used to criticize power structures and renegotiate accepted norms but is similarly governed by its own set of rules. But how do such opposites—rules and the unruly, entertainment and brutality, ritual and defiance of norms—go together and relate to one another within the act of revenge? And how might the tension between such opposites be dissolved? How did revenge become such an influential cultural trope in China? What is revenge used for in all these different contexts? And how did it change over the long history from early China to the present day?
In this workshop, we seek to study revenge in all fields of the Chinese socio-cultural realm to uncover its many facets and the relations between them. Therefore, we invite participants to explore the topic of revenge from various angles and with creative approaches, hoping to cover methodologies from diverse fields, including but not limited to: Anthropology, sociology, literature studies, philosophy, theater studies, history, political sciences, archaeology, criminology etc. We welcome both case studies as well as wider theoretical reflections on the
nature of revenge in China.
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