Compound Eyes and Limited Visions: Wu Ming-Yi's ＂Weak Anthropocentric＂ Gaze for World Literature

10.6153/EXP.201906_(41).0004

Dingru Huang

Wu Ming-Yi ； The Stolen Bicycle ； heterotemporality ； weak anthropocentricism

Ex-position

41期（2019 / 06 / 01）

53 - 70

英文

Inspired by Pheng Cheah's insights on the overlooked temporal dimension of postcolonial world literature, this article will explore Wu Ming-Yi's ＂worlding＂ process by delving into the heterotemporalities in his works. Focusing on Wu Ming-Yi's 2015 novel The Stolen Bicycle, I propose to read Wu's works as self-referential and allegorical critiques of world literature, which foreground fissures in translation, ever-ongoing yet incomplete knowledge production, and the encounters with the nonhuman other. I argue that through the heterotemporalities on both the formal and narrative levels, Wu Ming-Yi offers an alternative way of seeing and worlding Taiwanese literature, a self-critical position which he himself terms ＂weak anthropocentricism＂ and which points to an ecological time beyond the totalizing teleology of globalization.

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