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Paranormal Encounters with China: Fiction and Fact [F-13-43]

For the past 7 years, the presenter has been working closely with the zhiguai tradition of Chinese supernatural literature, stories that share a respect for the uncanny and the strange as well as for the historical and the realistic, resisting the impulse to distinguish fact from fiction. Having just completed the first English translation of Pu Songling’s zhiguai collection, Strange Tales from Liaozhai, the presenter is turning now to translation of the autobiography and daybook of Zhang Jinxing, a cultural hero who has been tracking the yeren (“wild men”), China’s own bigfoot creatures, in the mountains and high peaks of Hubei province. The presenter will talk about both of these projects and how they’ve influenced his thinking about – and appreciation for – paranormal phenomena.

Sid Sondergard is the Piskor Professor of English and Asian Studies at SLU, where he has taught for 27 years. He has translated Pu Songling’s Strange Tales from Liaozhai (6 volumes) and Giordano Bruno’s The Cabala of Pegasus. Sid’s publications range from film criticism to analysis of early modern European literature.