Comparative Encounters between Artaud, Michaux and the Zhuangzi

Part of "Book at Lunchtime", a fortnightly series of bite size book
discussions, with commentators from a range of disciplines. Xiaofan
Amy Li discusses her new book "Comparative Encounters Between
Artaud, Michaux and the Zhuangzi." Xiaofan Amy Li (Randall MacIver
Junior Research Fellow in Comparative Literature and Translation,
University of Oxford), with Marina Warner (Fellow, All Souls
College, University of Oxford), Wang Xing (DPhil student in
Oriental Studies, University of Oxford), read a review by Prof
Lloyd and Matthew Reynolds (Times Lecturer in English, University
of Oxford) The encounter between different minds and perspectives
across time and space has always haunted the literary and
philosophical imagination. Just such an encounter is staged and
played out in this comparative study, which connects the
twentieth-century Francophone writers Antonin Artaud (1896-1948)
and Henri Michaux (1899-1984) with the ancient Chinese text
Zhuangzi (c. 4th-3rd century BCE). These disparate texts are
bridged by questions that draw them into close dialogue: how can
Artaud and Michaux, who read about and admired ancient Chinese
literature and culture, be rethought through certain philosophical
concerns that the Zhuangzi raises? If the points of conceptual
intersection focus on rationality, cosmology and ethics, what can
they tell us about these important issues? By imagining,
constructing and developing this thought-encounter, Li re-envisages
Artaud, Michaux and the Zhuangzi through the kaleidoscope of
comparative interpretation, juxtaposing and recombining ideas and
contexts to form new patterns and meanings.