Curriculum Planning and Visions
Though Sinophone Literature and Chinese Literature, in wide sense, use the same letter system, academically, they refer to different perspective in strict sense. Chinese Literature suggests taking classical Chinese literature, classical Chinese philosophy and classical letter system as the main content of studies. Sinophone Literature breaks away from the traditional mono-centered viewpoint of Chinese Literature, and transcends the binary conception of the orthodox and the alternative, the inside and the outside, the center and the margin. Yet, any kinds of literature and cultural resources, mediated by Sinophone language, from different societies, communities, ethnic groups, and cultural entities are equally assessed by Sinophone Literature. Sinophone Literature is the emerging issue of contemporary literary studies: focusing on the literary pieces written by Sinophone language and its cultural implication, and taking modern and contemporary literary works as the main research targets. In recent years, this emerging field has been actively promoted by important scholars, such as Wang, Der-wei, academician, Academia Sinica, Prof. Shih, Shu-mei, UCLA, and many other researchers in HK.
The related departments of Chinese Literature in Taiwan are based on the above mentioned research directions, and supported with a few basic courses of modern literature. The Department of Chinese Literature (NDHU) established in 1996 had already planned to combine theory with practice, classic with modern, and China with the West; therefore, it recruited professors from the various professional areas including modern and contemporary literary studies, media studies, cultural studies...etc. Due to the integration of NDHU with National Hualien University of Educations in 2008 and the corresponding re-organization of departments, starting from August of 2010, Department of Chinese Literature was re-organized and renamed Department of Sinophone Literature. Then, after the re-organization of faculties, we made up the clear distinction, in sense of academic objectives, between Department of Sinophone Literature and Department of Chinese Literature. (after 2010, some teachers from former Department of Chinese Literature from Shoufeng Campus joined other teachers in Meilun Campus for the re-establishing the Department of Chinese Literature)
The faculties of Department of Sinophone Literature includes some teachers from the former Department of Chinese Literature (Shoufeng Campus), especially those specialized in contemporary literature and cultural studies, and other teachers from Department of English (Shoufeng Campus) , Department of Taiwanese Literature (Meilun Campus), Department of Indigenous Language and Communication(Shoufeng Campus) and Graduate Institute of Folk Literature (Meilun Campus) for the purpose of multi-disciplinary directions. The education objectives of the Department is to mainly focus on the modern and the contemporary Sinophone Literature, to integrate literature with cultural studies, and to emphasize on the creative writing and applied practice of Sinophone Literature. Yet, the objectives of Department of Chinese Literature are based on the above mentioned characteristics and the faculties specialized in the relevant studies. The clear distinction and difference between Department of Sinophone Literatue and Department of Chinese Literature is elaborated in the following list.
