Honorary Fellow - Citation: Prof. Joseph LAU Shiu-ming

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榮譽院士贊辭：劉紹銘教授

劉紹銘教授的學術生涯橫跨四個年代（當中包括在美國及香港的若干主要大學擔任重要的職位），在研究、翻譯及創意寫作範疇上，均有極大貢獻。要概述他的生平，殊非簡單。在列出劉教授各項非凡的成就的同時，我們亦不可忽視他本人非凡的人格。

劉教授的成功故事，有一個不平凡的開始。錯失接受正規教育的機會後，他以兼讀形式在夜校進修，最終成功考入著名的國立台灣大學外國語文系。在那裏，他有機會盡情投入令他醉心的文學世界，以及結織到許多顯赫的作家和學者，如李歐梵、白先勇、王文興等，他們不少都是他當年的同學。劉教授與這羣志同道合的朋友，一同創辦了《現代文學》雜誌，對一整輩年輕人的文藝口味，有著舉足輕重的影響。

於1961年，劉教授前往美國，於印地安納大學 (Indiana University) 繼續進修，並於1966年取得比較文學博士學位。在夏威夷、新加坡及香港等地的若干大學短暫任教後，他在威斯康辛麥迪遜大學 (University of Wisconsin-Madison) 的東亞語文及文學系，前後擔任教職及系主任逾廿載。然而，劉教授最寶貴的光陰卻留給了嶺南大學，在嶺大服務了十年後，他剛於去年榮休。說那是「最寶貴的光陰」，是因為他將他在威斯康辛大學東亞語文系的行政經驗、珍貴的學人網絡，以及對中國文學研究明確清晰的方向，都統統獻給了嶺大。在他的領導下，中文系和翻譯系多年來獲益良多。

劉教授在中國文學、比較文學及翻譯範疇，都出版過不少才情橫溢的著作。要將他從1966年至今的著作一一列出並不可能，但不難發現的，是他的研究興趣涉獵範疇相當廣泛。劉教授對韓少功、白先勇、陳映真及張系國等作家的評論，徹底改寫了我們對這些二十世紀華人作家的看法；他那數篇關於「自我翻譯」 (self-translation) ——作家翻譯自己的文字——的文章，探討了一個幾乎沒有人涉足過的研究領域，現在卻在翻譯界引起了熱烈的討論。為了表揚他傑出的研究貢獻，香港科技大學剛邀請他由今年8月1日起，出任包玉剛傑出客座教授
(Y K Pao Distinguished Visiting Professor)。

請讓我續談劉教授另一範疇的工作——翻譯選集及翻譯工作。劉教授所編寫的許多翻譯選集，乃海外大學的西方學生修讀漢學時的必讀參考書。除此之外，他的作品成功將那些經歷了數個世紀的中國文學經典著作的精髓，帶給初探中國文學的西方人士。他的代表作包括：（與Howard Goldblatt合編的）《The Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Literature》，及（與John Minford合編的）《Classical Chinese Literature》。實際上，後者是西方世界現存最齊全、以英文出版的經典中國文學作品文集，當中集合過去二千年的一千多篇作品。

劉教授另外還有四本選集著作，相信修讀中國文學的同學，早已熟悉，包括：《The Unbroken Chain: An Anthology of Taiwan Fiction since 1926》、《Chinese Stories from Taiwan: 1960-70》、《Modern Chinese Stories and Novellas: 1919-1949》，及最受愛戴的（與馬幼垣合編的）《Traditional Chinese Stories: Themes and Variations》。在過去接近三十年的時間裡，劉教授或多或少規劃了，修讀中文課程的西方學生需要認識（或不需要認識）的二十世紀中國文學，這個說法實在一點都沒有誇大。我們熱切期盼讀到，劉教授將於今年出版的《Classical Chinese Literature》第二冊。

作為一個翻譯工作者，值得一提的是，劉教授是少數能作雙向翻譯（即中譯英及英譯中）的譯者。他曾參與翻譯曹禺的《原野》（The Wilderness），以及翻譯了George Orwell 著的《1984》 (1984)、Issac Bashevis Singer著的《傻子金寶》 (Gimpel the Fool and Other Stories)、Saul Bellow著的 (合譯的)《何索》(Herzog) ，以及Bernard Malamud著的《夥計》 (The Assistant) 和《魔桶》(The Magic Barrel) 等五個小說作品，都是值得研究者審視的經典。

不過，對於不少香港、中國大陸、東南亞，以及海外的華人讀者來說，他們最熟悉的還是劉教授的創作。還有，劉教授的朋友和同事都不會反對，在他的十八本散文集以及環繞虛構人物「二殘」 的一系列小說作品裏，我們可以找到他本人的印記。劉教授的創作表現了他的真性情，特別是他對冷酷無情的現實採取的幽默態度，他對志同道合的朋友的關愛和他的俠義情懷。他這些性格特質最能在「二殘」的遊歷中找到證據。二殘的旅程中遇上的不少人，都是劉教授的朋友的映射。在《二殘遊記》中，劉教授表達了海外留學生及學者，在一個陌生的文化環境中，遇到的種種挫折及得到的啟發。不少讀者，當中包括劉教授的朋友，都從不放棄找出小說中誰是真實生活中的誰。

主席先生，劉教授在以上三大範疇的成就卓越，以及他在本校擔任文學院院長和兩個學系的系主任時的表現出色，本人謹恭請　閣下頒授嶺南大學榮譽院士銜予劉紹銘教授。


Honorary Fellow - Citation: Prof. Joseph LAU Shiu-ming

In a career that spans four decades (which includes premier appointments at major universities in the United States and Hong Kong) and features enormous contributions in the areas of research, translation and creative writing, Professor Joseph Lau Shiu-ming gives his biographer a most daunting task. One can only hope to avoid giving simply a catalogue of Professor Lau’s remarkable achievements without doing full justice to the remarkable person that is behind the voluminous publications.

Professor Lau’s remarkable success story began in a most amazing manner. Having lost the chance for a formal education he took up part-time evening studies, finally succeeding in gaining admission to the prestigious Department of Foreign Languages at National Taiwan University. There he had the opportunity to indulge his literary interests and became friends with such eminent writers and scholars as Leo Ou-fan Lee, Pai Hsien-yung, Wang Wen-hsing, many of them his classmates at the time. The literary coterie they created founded the journal Modern Literature (Xiandai Wenxue), which played a prominent part in influencing the intellectual and literary tastes of an entire generation.

In 1961 Professor Lau departed for the United States, to pursue his postgraduate studies at Indiana University, where he obtained his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature in 1966. He then served for over twenty years at the Department of East Asian Languages and Literature (EALL), University of Wisconsin-Madison, after brief stints at Hawaii, Singapore and Hong Kong. Nevertheless, Professor Lau gave his finest years to Lingnan University, where he served for ten years till his retirement last year — I say “his finest years” because he brought with him administrative expertise that he acquired as Chairman of the EALL Department at Wisconsin, an enviable network of scholarly connections that this colleagues can tap into, and a clear sense of direction concerning research in the field of Chinese literary studies. Both the Department of Chinese and the Department of Translation have, over the years, benefited greatly from his unsurpassed leadership.

Professor Lau has published prodigiously in the areas of Chinese literature, comparative literature and translation studies. An exhaustive listing of his publications from 1966 to the present would be impracticable, but one easily notices the wide range of his research interests. Professor Lau’s discussions of Han Shaogong, Pai Hsien-yung, Chen Yingzhen, Zhang Xiguo, and others have effectively transformed our view of these leading twentieth-century Chinese writers, and his several articles on the issue of self-translation — the writer translating himself/herself — mark out an area of research hitherto virtually untouched but now fervently discussed in translation circles. In recognition of his outstanding research, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology has just appointed him Y K Pao Distinguished Visiting Professor, beginning from August 1st this year.

Let me turn to a second area of Professor Lau’s work — translation anthologizing and translation. Several of the translation anthologies that Professor Lau has edited are essential readings for Western students of sinology at overseas universities. But other than serving as a channel for Westerners to come to grips with Chinese literature, they are crucial to the establishment of a canon which represents the finest fruits of a centuries-long literary tradition. I am referring to, first, The Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Literature (co-edited with Howard Goldblatt), and Classical Chinese Literature (co-edited with John Minford). The latter is, in effect, the most comprehensive English-language collection of classical Chinese literature available in the Western world, featuring more than a thousand selections from the past two thousand years.  

Four other anthologies by Professor Lau with which students of Chinese literature have long been familiar are The Unbroken Chain: An Anthology of Taiwan Fiction since 1926, Chinese Stories from Taiwan: 1960-70, Modern Chinese Stories and Novellas: 1919-1949, and the immensely popular Traditional Chinese Stories: Themes and Variations (co-edited with Ma Yau-woon). It will not be an exaggeration to say that for nearly thirty years Professor Lau has more or less mandated what the Western student in Chinese programmes should know (and not know) about twentieth-century Chinese literature on both sides of the Strait. We eagerly await the second volume of his Classical Chinese Literature, scheduled to appear later this year.

As for translation activities that Professor Lau himself has engaged in, one must mention the fact that he is one of the few translators who have translated “in both directions,” from Chinese into English and vice versa. He is co-translator of Ts’ao Yu’s The Wilderness, and his five translations of fictional works by George Orwell (1984), Issac Bashevis Singer (Gimpel the Fool and Other Stories), Saul Bellow (Herzog [co-translated]) and Bernard Malamud (The Assistant and The Magic Barrel) are already classics that deserve to be closely scrutinized by researchers.

For many readers in Hong Kong, Mainland China, Southeast Asia and overseas Chinese communities, however, it is in the area of creative writing that Professor Lau is best-known. Also, it is in Professor Lau’s 18 collections of personal essays, as well as his famed sequence of novels about the fictional character “Ercan” (the Second Mr. Derelict), that one sees the man himself, as Professor Lau’s friends and colleagues would no doubt agree. Professor Lau’s creative writings display to a remarkable degree aspects of his own character, particularly his penchant for taking a humourous look at the harsh realities of daily life, and his genuine attachment to like-minded friends, something often encapsulated in the Chinese word for “knight-errantry” (xia). Both of these traits are discernible in the saga of the adventures of the Second Mr. Derelict. Many of the people that he encounters in his travelogues are drawn on the basis of Professor Lau’s personal friends. In Travels of Ercan, in particular, Professor Lau seeks to render the frustrations and aspirations of overseas students and scholars struggling to survive in a culturally different environment. The effort at identifying who is being depicted as whom is a hunting game that readers of the novels — many of them friends of Professor Lau’s — refuse to give up, at least not for a while.

Mr. Chairman, for his remarkable contribution to the three areas mentioned above, and for his distinguished service to the University as Dean of the Arts Faculty and Head of two Departments, may I present Professor Lau for the conferment of an Honorary Fellowship of Lingnan University.