Changes and Prospects of Overseas Chinese Literature Research

After more than 40 years of development, overseas Chinese literature research has made great progress in terms of concept discrimination, methods and ideas. The process has gone through three stages "seeking common ground," "reserving differences" and "literary governance" -through which the overall consciousness and comparative characteristics of the research gradually emerged. The concept of "overseas Chinese literature" refers not only to a special type of literature in special space or place, but also to a "misplaced" thinking about global modernities. Taking Chineseness and locality as the most critical issues of its own, overseas Chinese literature research continues to discuss the relationships between internal and external, Chinese and foreign, primary and secondary, variants and invariants, etc. It illustrates the complexity and locality of identity politics by discussing root and route, and also illustrates the energy and mobility that are fulfilled in the process of identity establishment by discussing "shi." The concepts of "Sinophone" and "Sinophone/Xenophone Mesology" put forward recently are the latest trends in overseas Chinese literature research. The former tries to emphasize differences and minorities, while the latter concerns about the close connection between literature and nature, society, spirit and other aspects, strengthens the human condition, and responds to the ontology of literature. Both of these new concepts drive us to pay attention to the mobility and inherent connectivity of overseas Chinese literature. It deals not only with the development of Chinese literature and the relationship between Chinese and foreign literature, but also with speculation on the practice of all minority transnational literature. Like the back-and-forth rhythm of oceans, overseas Chinese literature represents the process of persistent dialogue between different cultural experiences, which helps us to think about and refine a marine poetics.