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- Modern and Contemporary Literary Theory and Criticism (34)
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The Logical Progress Of German Idealist Aesthetics: With A Discussion On The Aesthetic Historical Significance Of Schiller's On Beauty, Wei Li
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The trajectory of German Idealist aesthetics form Kant to Hegel revolves around the developmental process from philosophical analysis of psycho-aesthetic structure to dialectic examination of aesthetic object down to critical aesthetics and philosophy of art, with a knowledge background of modern European intellectual climate or the pursuit of determinacy. Schiller's On Beauty (Kallias, 1793), by exhausting the research methods of beauty, constituted an intermediary link in the advancement in German Idealist aesthetics and established its inerasable significance in the history of aesthetics.
The Politics Of Technology: Reflections On Overseas Modern Chinese Visual Cultural Studies, Xiayun Yu
The Politics Of Technology: Reflections On Overseas Modern Chinese Visual Cultural Studies, Xiayun Yu
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The dialectical relationship between words and images is an important issue of modern Chinese literary studies. Although the interpretations from the overseas, especially Rey Chow's "technologized visuality," highlight the key position of visuality in the making process of modern Chinese literature, they exaggerate the opposition between words and images, and this exaggeration implies a colonial thinking of technology which sets the relationship between China and the Western as that between the primitive and the modern through its emphasis on Western-ownership of technology. Thus, technology becomes not only a state of matter but also a structure of ideology. If the emphasis …
The Political Turn And Rational Return Of Critical Discourse In Its Localization In China, Wenfang Yao
The Political Turn And Rational Return Of Critical Discourse In Its Localization In China, Wenfang Yao
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The term "critical discourse" was not indigenous in China, and Liang Qichao and Wang Guowei were believed to bring it as a Kantian concept into Chinese knowledge and discourse system. But Liang gradually strayed from the neutral and rational Kantian concept to relate it with negative political nuance. The denunciative negative nuance was increasingly reinforced in the years from the May 4th New Culture Movement to the 10-year Cultural Revolution. The 1980s saw the return of the implications of the term from the highly political to the rational and neutral, with significant flexibility and tolerance. This return helped to redress …
The Qi-Liang Poets' Rediscovery And Imitation Of The Han Dynasty Music Bureau And Ancient Style Poetry, Yao Zhong
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The Qi-Liang Period was an important phase in the acceptance history of the Han Music Bureau Poetry and the ancient style poetry. The Qi-Liang poets rediscovered and imitated the Han poetry and through this they had developed a reflective relationship with the Han poetry in terms of technique, style and criticism. Their emphasis on the folk song tradition and on the Wu-dialect ballad (Wu Sheng Xi Qu) had not only highlighted the folk song features but also the lyric genre in the Music Bureau poetry, while their pursuit for lyricism, individualistic style and the expression of personal sentiments led to …
The Structure Of Narrative Dynamics In Lyric Poetry: Exemplified With Classical Chinese Lyric Poems, Junqiang Tan
The Structure Of Narrative Dynamics In Lyric Poetry: Exemplified With Classical Chinese Lyric Poems, Junqiang Tan
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
As a product of author-reader communication, lyrical texts, like narrative texts, have internal narrative dynamics to push the narrative progression. The structure of the dynamics shows as the three relations of time, logic and space in the texts. These relations exist in the combination of events and development of plots in narrative texts, but in lyrical texts they show in different ways. The fusion of narrative dynamics and reader dynamics pushes the narrative progression and realizes the communications between the author and the reader. This paper takes classical Chinese lyrics as examples to illustrate the analysis.
A Philosophical Discussion On Liu Xie's Concept Of Literary Talent Mindset, Shugong Zhao
A Philosophical Discussion On Liu Xie's Concept Of Literary Talent Mindset, Shugong Zhao
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The idea of literary talent mindset was epitomized in The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons in the period of Wei-Jin and Six Dynasties. The book contained the most comprehensive and profound knowledge of literary mind as an aptitude, which was seminal to almost all the later discourses on the issue of literary talent, and its theoretical insight remains unsurpassable in many aspects. Liu Xie's philosophical view of the nature and human is reflected in this concept of literary talent mind, which gave both weight to gift and diligence, and the equal emphases on human efforts and born gift …
Between Medusa And Nymph: On Agamben's Theory Of Image, Jiang Lan
Between Medusa And Nymph: On Agamben's Theory Of Image, Jiang Lan
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Image is born as a technology of memory, that is, the image realizes the possibility to access a disappeared past from the perspective of our finite present. However, the original image, as an object petrified by Medusa, has frozen a past which we cannot penetrate from our finitude. Indeed, Agamben doesn't think that the existence of image will thoroughly petrify our past; on the contrary, there are crevices between the petrified stones. It is in these crevices that lies the possibility to dialectically articulate the images, that is, Walter Benjamin’s dialectical image. Nevertheless, what fascinates Agamben most is not the …
Foucault And Damnatio Memoriae: An Introduction To The Mnemo-Government Of Cinema, Yang Li
Foucault And Damnatio Memoriae: An Introduction To The Mnemo-Government Of Cinema, Yang Li
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Foucault published several interviews and articles about cinema in 1970s, and he took the cinema as one of the dispositifs codifying the popular memory. The working class in 19th century invented many ways to write their own memory, but the cinema, by way of popular historical narration, ended the history of the people from the lower depths to write their memory. Foucault analyzed how the controversial (retro and erotic) films in 1970s represented desire and power in historical narration. This paper tries to combine Foucault's "dispositif of popular memory" with the biopolitics, and claims that the memory is also the …
Gao Ershi's Concept Of The Refined And The Mundane In Calligraphic Art, Bin Zhou, Shuqiang Cui
Gao Ershi's Concept Of The Refined And The Mundane In Calligraphic Art, Bin Zhou, Shuqiang Cui
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The concepts of the refined and the mundane are a pair of important category in calligraphic aesthetics and Gao Ershi's ideas on this are reflected in three aspects. The first is to regard the classical as the refined and the contemporary as the mundane. This is realized by reviving and studying the cursive style for official writing. The second is to regard the cultured to be refined and the crafted as the mundane. This emphasizes the cultural and aesthetic implications and attributes of calligraphy. The third is to take the clear to be refined and the turbid to be mundane. …
Ironical Appropriation Of Revolutionary Signs: For Memories Buried In Forgetting, Jiwu Zhou
Ironical Appropriation Of Revolutionary Signs: For Memories Buried In Forgetting, Jiwu Zhou
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The ironical appropriation of revolutionary signs is a visual representation strategy widely used in contemporary art practice of China, with the purpose to transform invisible cultural trauma into visual text of remembrance. Amid the textual and visual narratives, hierarchical order of symbols and signs meets its deconstruction. Appropriation of revolutionary signs in contemporary art practice is evident in three aspects: 1) appropriation and contra-appropriation of visual signs; 2) displacement and transformation of visual images; 3) parody of visual texts. However, not all appropriation of revolutionary signs is ironical, and the criteria for irony should include semantic polysemy, contextual sharing, and …
Is Queer Theory Equal To Gay And Lesbian Studies？, Lanlan Du
Is Queer Theory Equal To Gay And Lesbian Studies？, Lanlan Du
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Queer theory is a field of post-structuralist critical theory that emerged in the early 1990s out of women's studies. Although it is related to gay and lesbian studies, it differs from and reacts to them. Since Chinese scholars tend to conflate queer theory with gay and lesbian studies, this essay hopes for a more accurate introduction of queer theory with an analysis of its main ideas.
Narrative, Situation And Metaphor: How Plato's Republic'S Opening Paragraphs Are Written And Read, Linfang Zhu
Narrative, Situation And Metaphor: How Plato's Republic'S Opening Paragraphs Are Written And Read, Linfang Zhu
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Plato's Republic is both a philosophical and a literary text. Plato had kept revising the opening of The Republic till the end of his life. The Republic has a structure of dual narrative, with the man called "I" also playing a double role in this book. The time, the place, the order of appearance and the unfolding of the events all correspond to the theme. The genre of dialogue and narrative saves this philosophical text from being trapped too deep into the metaphysical mire, but too many symbolic metaphors make the interpretation of the text an attempt to solve mysteries. …
Notes On Text Theory, Youxiang Tu
Notes On Text Theory, Youxiang Tu
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The conception of le texte scriptible (the writerly text) in Roland Barthes reveals the character of the text of undistinguished relation between subject and object. According to Barthes, "the text" is both an object and a subject, and if it is a pure object, it will be a work, while as a subject the text brings the author's role into play. The theoretical significance of the text is given not innate, and the pure plurality in Roland Barthes's theory does not refer to multiple meanings, because ambiguity can still lie in a unified structure, when pure plurality eliminates the centrality …
On Beauty: Its Naming And Reference, Hongxiang Li
On Beauty: Its Naming And Reference, Hongxiang Li
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
What is beauty? This is the first and an everlasting question in aesthetics. However, there is no clear definition about beauty so far in aesthetic history because of the confusion of name and reference. Beauty is often interpreted as the beautiful thing or the beautiful attribution of thing. This paper aims to delineate the problematic of the naming and reference of beauty by putting the problem back to the context of Plato's time and tracing the process of the formation of this philosophic concept. The paper falls into three sections, which first problematizes the naming of beauty and the reasons …
On Liu Shipei's "On The Difference Of The Southern And The Northern China's Literature", Jian Wu
On Liu Shipei's "On The Difference Of The Southern And The Northern China's Literature", Jian Wu
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Traditional distinction between the Southern and the Northern China's literature were made on historical specificities, while Liu Shipei in his pioneer essay in modern literary criticism "On the Difference between the Southern and the Northern China's Literature" took a theoretical perspective that viewed the distinction as an ahistorical literary framework a priori. Liu's argument may be read as a point for a paradigmatic breakup, but Liu did not push forward his idea in his practice. Instead, he attached more weight to the essence (zhi) over the literary (wen) in this traditional pair of concepts, and his contribution in the history …
Redefining Art, Anying Chen
Redefining Art, Anying Chen
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
This paper tries to present a new definition of art on the basis of contemporary Western philosophy of art. William E. Kennick's and Arthur Danto's definitions are sophisticatedly open, but they fail to take into account of the dimension of value in art. This paper proposes that art is both a production and a culture, which means that art is the production of cultural value through artisanship. The definition of art in the classical aesthetics has defined art as craftsmanship plus aesthetic value and defines artworks as the product with aesthetic value, while this paper defines art as craftsmanship plus …
Style-Breaking In Song-Dynasty Ci-Poetry And Its Acceptance In The Context Of "Flexible Method", Xiaoli Wang
Style-Breaking In Song-Dynasty Ci-Poetry And Its Acceptance In The Context Of "Flexible Method", Xiaoli Wang
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The idea of "flexible method" in composting ci-poetry in the Song Dynasty has two essential elements of "rule" and "change," and this idea embodies the pursuit of literary innovation in the Song Dynasties. It is an important part of the poetic theory and has profound influence on the literary evolution in the Song Dynasties. The style-breaking methods such as "composing ci-poems like regulated poems" and "composing ci-poems like prose" were in effect the proliferation of the idea of "flexible method" in the field of ci-poetics. There has been much elucidation in the Song and Yuan commentaries on ci-poetry that echoes …
Truth / Method: The Gadamer-Ricoeur Debate, Jin Qiu, Fenggang Du
Truth / Method: The Gadamer-Ricoeur Debate, Jin Qiu, Fenggang Du
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
There exist remarkable differences between Gadamer's and Ricoeur's understandings of the concepts "truth" and "method." Ricoeur believes that Gadamer's hermeneutics brings about the disjuncture of hermeneutic truth, while Gadamer holds that Ricoeur's structuralist method cannot integrate the conflicts of interpretations into a unified ontology. This paper points out that both philosophers develop their theories of truth on the basis of Heidegger's hermeneutical ontology, but in different ways. Gadamer focuses on the truth of understanding disclosed in the event of hermeneutic dialogue, while Ricoeur emphasizes the truth of self-understanding mediated by hermeneutic reflection. Both philosophers keep similar distance from the absolute …
What Is Narrative Ethic Criticism?, Hongsheng Wang
What Is Narrative Ethic Criticism?, Hongsheng Wang
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
This paper probes into the origin, significance and problematic of narrative ethic criticism, and demonstrates narrative ethics can be approached from three aspects. Firstly, narration and ethics are indivisible in that there has been for a long time an intertwining and mutually generative relationship between them. Secondly, narration may be characterized to be moral or immoral as well as ordered or unordered, which means there exists non-ethical or even anti-ethical narration. Finally, narration itself may have ethical nature, and this nature is very likely to be under tension due to the possibility of constructing multiple value orders by way of …
A Comparative Study Of Deleuze's And Badiou's Theory Of Cinema: Exemplified By Wim Wenders' False Movement, Xinyu Hu
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Gilles Deleuze and Alain Badiou have different philosophical foundations constructed their own theories of cinema and applied them into the analyses of cinematic works. One of their intersections of analysis falls on Wim Wenders' False Movement. Through a comparative study of their analyses of the film, the paper tries to arrive at a deeper understanding of both philosophers' theory of cinema and a general survey of their similarities and differences. Through the analysis, the paper also hopes to expose the problem of the relationship of philosophy and cinema.
A Re-Examination Of "Imagistic Thinking": With A Focus On Zhu Guangqian And Li Zehou, Qian Cao
A Re-Examination Of "Imagistic Thinking": With A Focus On Zhu Guangqian And Li Zehou, Qian Cao
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Zhu Guangqian's and Li Zehou's concepts of "imagistic thinking" were formed in the 1950s and the Post-Mao Period, with each having distinctive characteristics and both having common ground. While both equal "imagination" with "imagistic thinking," Zhu had always been taking them as the same and Li’s concept has evolved into using imagination to replace imagistic thinking. Although imagistic thinking is a transitional concept in the history of contemporary Chinese aesthetics, its theoretical value and significance are highlighted in the present context of linguistic turn and visual culture.
Ideology In Narrative And The Surpass Of It: A Discussion Based On Ricoeur's Lectures On Ideology And Utopia, Xin Liu
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
This paper bases its discussion on Paul Ricoeur's Lectures on Ideology and Utopia and investigates how Ricoeur proposes his own dialectical conceptualization upon his own reading of Marx's classical texts and constructs his dimension of reflection in his poetics of narrative. Narrative, when bringing logic structure into events, becomes a process of rationalization or legitimization, and in this process the reality is distorted. Before it becomes absolute distortion, Ricoeur claims, the representation itself is one part of the materialistic and linguistic activities of a human person, a language of real life existed before distortion. When narrative links to such function, …
The Duality Of Expressive Rhetoric: The Intention Of Literary Mind And The Carving Of Dragon As Investigated From "Casting And Paring", Baojing Li
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
On the basis of a global reading of Liu Xie's Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragon, this paper proposes a link between the section "Casting and Paring" and the other sections in the book, and maintains that only through such a link can the structural features, cultural efficiency and Confucian responsibilities in Liu Xie's expressive rhetoric. The parallelism in argumentative mode between the section "Affections and Coloration" and the section "casting and paring" informs a two-sided rhetoric with affection as the subjective quality and casting as the textual quality. "Casting and paring" (argumentation and writing) is realized as a …
Culture Trauma, Morality And Solidarity: The Social Construction Of "Holocaust" And Other Mass Murders, C. Alexander Jeffrey
Culture Trauma, Morality And Solidarity: The Social Construction Of "Holocaust" And Other Mass Murders, C. Alexander Jeffrey
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Cultural trauma occurs when members of a collectivity feel they have been subjected to a horrendous event that leaves indelible marks upon their group consciousness, marking their memories forever and changing their future identity in fundamental and irrevocable ways. By constructing cultural traumas, social groups, national societies, and sometimes even entire civilizations, not only cognitively identify the existence and source of human suffering, but may also take on board some significant moral responsibility for it. Insofar as they identify the cause of trauma in a manner that assumes such moral responsibility, members of collectivities define their solidary relationships that allow …
Rethinking Camp: From Sontag's "Notes On Camp" To Camp Films, Wensi Li
Rethinking Camp: From Sontag's "Notes On Camp" To Camp Films, Wensi Li
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Susan Sontag's 1964 article "Notes on Camp" resurfaces to the reading public with the 10th anniversary of her death. As a term, "camp" became well known during the 1960s, yet its origin can be traced to the 17th century. As a notion of taste, the camp sensibility is active in all fields of nostalgic collections, avant-garde and independent art, rock music and fashion. As a genre of subculture, camp is closely linked with the development of the queer theory, the youth movement and the politics of homosexuality. Camp appreciation can also be seen in the film industry, which provides us …
Historical Changes Of The Concept Of Female Beauty In The Pre-Qin Period From The Appreciation Of Ugliness To Beauty, Yongzhen Cheng
Historical Changes Of The Concept Of Female Beauty In The Pre-Qin Period From The Appreciation Of Ugliness To Beauty, Yongzhen Cheng
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The concept of female beauty in the Pre-Qin period underwent a great historical change from the appreciation of "the ugly" to that of "the beautiful." The image of beautiful females in the prehistoric age was characteristically "ugly and muscular," highlighting the reproductive function and death function of the Great Mother, and could be argued to be the embodiment of the victory of "the mother principle." The beautiful and the ugly were blended in the image of the female beauty in the Xia-Shang period, which was mainly because the establishment of patriarchy had turned the female from aesthetic subject into aesthetic …
On The Connotations Of Hsia Chih-Tsing's Criticism With An Example From The Perspective Of Close Reading Of A History Of Modern Chinese Fiction, Wei Xia
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Hsia Chih-tsing's concept of literary criticism in his History of Modern Chinese Fiction is constructed around a group of concepts centered round moral concerns and supplemented with indirect comment and personality integrity. However, when these criticism are put into practice, personality integrity often than not takes precedence over the other concepts and sways Hsia's objectivity in evaluating literary works. The paper argues that Hsia had the edge of literary critic but was not sharp enough to be a literary theorist, although his achievements have been the most fortunate contribution to the study of modern Chinese literature.
The Boundaries, Implicit Speech, And Blind Areas Of The Narrative Of Love In The Red Classics, Yanbing Hui
The Boundaries, Implicit Speech, And Blind Areas Of The Narrative Of Love In The Red Classics, Yanbing Hui
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
In the narrative of love, "Red Classics" in contemporary Chinese literature have left many significant narrative traces, and these traces show in the changeable boundaries, abundant implicit speech and characteristic blind areas. Through these traces we can recognize the specific historical context of those literary works and the complicated interaction between literary narrative and the dominant ideology. Symptomatic reading of the love narratives helps us to evaluate the Red Classics more objectively and understand the intrinsic nature of contemporary literature better.
On The Generic Hybridization Between Fiction And Biography, Qinghua Wang
On The Generic Hybridization Between Fiction And Biography, Qinghua Wang
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Biography as a literary genre comes between unofficial history and fiction, although closer to fiction. This paper examines the hybridization between fiction and biography with examples from the public and private catalogues since the Song Dynasty, and it analyzes the common ground between the two genres in terms of generic features, compilation approaches, and raw materials and investigates the boundaries of the genres in terms of functional value, thematic appeal and narrative approaches.
A Critical Survey Of Four Concepts In Literary Theories Concerning "Ethics", Yuanqiao Li
A Critical Survey Of Four Concepts In Literary Theories Concerning "Ethics", Yuanqiao Li
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
In terms of the relation between ethics and literature, some key concepts have been frequently used but sometimes the supposed distinction has not been clarified. This paper tries to survey the following four important concepts concerning the ethics in literary theories: ethical turn, ethical criticism, narrative ethics, and ethical literary criticism. The ethical turn occurs in many fields, while ethical criticism mainly applies to the field of literature and arts. The uses of narrative ethics vary in different contexts, and ethical literary criticism is a neologism in Chinese context first used by Chinese scholar Nie Zhenzhao.