Invisible Realms of Science Fiction with Mingwei Song

What is the New Wave of Chinese Science Fiction and how do the invisible aspects of reality that it brings to light impact the genre, the scholarship, and our understanding of literature in general? In this first instalment of the Sinophone Unrealities podcast, I talk with Mingwei Song about his love of science fiction, his latest book The Fear of Seeing, and his critically acclaimed experiments with SF poetry.  

We take a peek at invisibility on all levels of literary research: From the unseen realms of society that take centre stage in works by writers such as Han Song, to the overlooked sides of SF that emerge through poetry, and beyond into the hidden sides of academia where poets dwell. 

Invisible Guest: Mingwei Song (https://www.wellesley.edu/ealc/faculty/songm ) is Associate Professor of Chinese & Director of Chinese program at Wellesley College, Massachusetts USA. He has published several monographs on both modern and contemporary Chinese literature including Young China: National Rejuvenation and the Bildungsroman 1900-1959, 《五四@100》 (May Fourth@100) with David Der-wei Wang and 《中國科幻新浪潮》 (New Wave of Chinese Science Fiction). His pioneering work on new wave Chinese SF has made him one of the leading scholars in this field and his latest –much anticipated– book The Fear of Seeing: The Poetics and Politics of Chinese Science Fiction is forthcoming with Columbia University Press. His poetry has appeared in eminent journals including the legendary 今天 (Today) and a collaborative collection with Luo Yijun (駱以軍) is underway. 

Hidden Host: Astrid Møller-Olsen (https://www.sol.lu.se/en/person/AstridMollerOlsen ) is postdoctoral fellow with Lund University (Sweden), University of Stavanger (Norway), and University of Oxford (UK) in a position funded by the Swedish Research Council. She has published on fictional dictionaries, urban forms of narrative memory, and sensory approaches to the study of literature and her current research is a cross-generic study of plant-human relationships in contemporary Sinophone literature from science fiction to surrealism. She writes the literary blog www.xiaoshuo.blog .