TSLR Chats: Carlos Rojas with Maya Peak
TSLR Chats: Carlos Rojas with Maya Peak
In which two TSLR staff sit down together in discussion for the newsletter
Welcome to our first installation of TSLR Chats. This will be a new regular feature where two staff members sit down to discuss a topic for the newsletter. In this inaugural offering, Editorial Assistant Maya Peak interviews Criticism section editor Carlos Rojas.
Maya Peak: Hello Carlos, can you please introduce yourself?
Carlos Rojas: I am an editor-at-large at The Shanghai Literary Review, and I also edit a new section of the journal on Criticism.
MP: How long have you been at TSLR?
Rojas: I joined the journal in 2020 and began my new role as editor of the Criticism section last year (to begin preparing for the next issue of the journal, which will be published shortly).
MP: What are your aims with your new section?
Rojas: The objective of this new Criticism section is to curate a set of nonfiction essays on timely topics from a variety of different disciplines. For instance, for this next issue, we have essays by an author, a literature scholar, a historian, and an oceanographer, with all of the essays speaking to the issue’s general theme of “flux.”
MP: You're bringing various perspectives to this idea. An oceanographer, for example, is distinct from a writer. Could you comment on the connection between the arts and sciences?
Rojas: I’ve recruited essays from four different disciplines, but they all speak to the flux that characterizes the reality we inhabit. In my introduction to the Criticism section, I consider several theoretical paradigms for theorizing flux, from the Ancient Greek and Roman philosophers Epicurus and Lucretius, to contemporary quantum theory and chaos theory, and note that a recurrent theme in these models is that flux is a fundamental characteristic not only of the world itself, but also of our relationship to the world. To this end, each contributor comments on flux as it pertains to their respective field, while also implicitly reflecting on how the act of commenting on—and even simply observing—the world can help shape and transform it.
MP: What is your educational and academic background?
Rojas: I myself am trained in comparative literature and cultural studies, particularly in relation to China, Greater China, and the global Chinese diaspora.
MP: What’s something interesting that you learned recently?
Rojas: Something I learned recently is that the northern tip of Brazil is located further from the southern tip of the country than it is from any other country in the Americas.
MP: What other interests do you have?
Rojas: I am fortunate that there is considerable overlap between my academic and professional interests and my personal ones (I’m interested in cultural phenomena, and that’s what I study), but one purely non-professional interest is that I’m into endurance sports (mostly middle- to long-distance road races, trail races, and triathlons).
MP: You’re very busy! Are there any other projects that you are working on these days?
Rojas: As for other projects, I have two book-length translations that will be published later this year (one being a novel by the Malaysian-Chinese author Zhang Guixing, and the other being a collection of essays by the Chinese author Yan Lianke), and am also in the process of completing several co-edited volumes on Chinese digital media, the Chinese author Lu Xun and world literature, Contemporary Taiwan literature, and a cultural history of Chinese literature, as well as a journal special issue on Chinese science fiction cinema.
MP: Lu Xun was a writer who found safety in being Shanghainese (上海人) because of his ability to live in the Japanese Concession and be protected by a community of other writers. It was because of Shanghai’s uniquely intercultural status - though other cities might have similar cultural complexity - that so much art and expression could thrive. What does Shanghai as a haven and hub for creatives and intellectuals mean for you?
Rojas: Shanghai in the 1920s and 1930s was a distinctly cosmopolitan space that provided a very conducive environment for an author like Lu Xun—who drew eclectically from a wide range of international sources even as he established his reputation as one of modern China’s most representative authors. The closest parallel to Republican-era Shanghai that comes to mind is Paris between the wars, which was a similarly cosmopolitan space during a period of sociopolitical upheaval. International authors and artists such as Picasso, Joyce, Stravinsky, Hemingway, Dalí, and Josephine Baker all lived there during at least part of this period.
Carlos Rojas is professor of Chinese cultural studies at Duke University.
Maya Peak is an editorial assistant at The Shanghai Literary Review and a student at Duke Kunshan University studying Global Cultures and World Literature.
The Shanghai Literary Review Issue 8 is now available for pre-order; and will be shipped out to buyers in late spring, 2024.