Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 30 of 34
Full-Text Articles in Entire DC Network
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 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.
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 …
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 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.
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.
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.
Passion And Politics In Revolution: A Psychoanalytical Reading Of Ding Ling, Ban Wang, Xiaohua Cao
Passion And Politics In Revolution: A Psychoanalytical Reading Of Ding Ling, Ban Wang, Xiaohua Cao
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Psychoanalysis, a historically evolving discourse, has the radical and socially transformative potential. By addressing the sex centered mode in psychoanalytical criticism and by tracing certain fraught moments in Ding Ling's fiction, this paper suggests that private love can be an integral part of collective solidarity, that unconscious drives can propel the impulse for social change, and that libidinal energy can fuel political passion and collective action. Clarifying the concept of "sublimation", and analyzing "positive sublimation" process in which libidinal energy turns into political passion, this paper will challenge the rigid separation of libidinal life from social commitment, love from politics, …
The Study Of The Literature Of Minority Ethnic Groups: Some Reflections On The Concepts And Methods, Weiwei Yan
The Study Of The Literature Of Minority Ethnic Groups: Some Reflections On The Concepts And Methods, Weiwei Yan
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Literatures of minority ethnic groups is an indispensable part of literature in China, and have attracted increasing academic attention in recent decades. The study of different approaches to literature of minority ethnic groups with reflections on the concepts and methods may bring the achievement into prominence and rectify the errors. The study may open new possibilities in the researches of the literature of minority ethnic groups, promote the harmonious co-existence and co-development of these literatures, and prompt further research into and the value reconstruction of minority literatures.
Desire, Currency And Modern Urban Space: A Rereading Of Shi Zhecun's "The Spring Sun", Xiaoping Song
Desire, Currency And Modern Urban Space: A Rereading Of Shi Zhecun's "The Spring Sun", Xiaoping Song
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
With Shi Zhecun's (1905 年-2003 年) story "The Spring Sun" as an example, the paper aims to examine the two aspects of female experiences. The first is to explore the unique experience of the flaneuse in modern urban space and the symptoms of the female body in the heterogeneity of the traditional township space and modern urban space. The other is to analyze how the urban consumption space and the gaze evoke female desire and how money in the process of consumption constructs and deconstructs the female day-dreaming.
Karaoke-Style Rituals And Music: On The Practice Of Karaoke And The Problem Of Modernity, Guanjun Wu
Karaoke-Style Rituals And Music: On The Practice Of Karaoke And The Problem Of Modernity, Guanjun Wu
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
As one of the key parts of metropolitan life and popular culture in contemporary China, Karaoke has so far eluded the scope of scholarly study. This paper aims not just at analyzing the phenomena spurred by Karaoke activity but essentially at developing a structural analysis of this activity itself. By juxtaposing Karaoke against the Confucian thought on music, this paper argues that the structure of Karaoke constitutes a key feature of modernity and manifests what I call the "crisis of sincerity."
On The Idea Of Progress In The Literary Criticism In The Seventeen Years After 1949 And Its Influence, Pengcheng Kou
On The Idea Of Progress In The Literary Criticism In The Seventeen Years After 1949 And Its Influence, Pengcheng Kou
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
In the field of pre-modern Chinese literature, progress usually referred to the countercurrent of the revival of the ancient styles or practice and it often came with the claim that each era should have a literature with its own new spirit. The concept of progress in modern literature, however, was developed fundamentally with Darwin's evolutionism, which in literary studies displayed a temporal linear development. After the establishment of the People's Republic of China, the idea of progress in literature implies the literature which serves the masses and the revolution, with a proletariat ideology and a realistic approach. Progress, therefore, refers …
Western Literature Or Western Learning? On Wang Tao's Experience And Practice, Huaiqing Duan
Western Literature Or Western Learning? On Wang Tao's Experience And Practice, Huaiqing Duan
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The communication between Wang Tao (1828-1897) and protestant missionaries in the Late Qing Dynasty focused on the Western religion and learning. When discussing Western learning, Wang Tao also used the term "literature," a term that would have great influence on the developmental history of pre-modern Chinese literary thoughts. While he had a systematic exploration into the development of Western learning and the Jesuits' works in the Late Ming, Wang Tao didn't elaborate on the concept of the term "wenxue (literature)," although he had mentioned Western poetry and other genres as well as some important Greek, Roman and British poets. Wang …
Yan Lianke And Chinese Literature In The Perspective Of World Literature, Zhang Yingjin
Yan Lianke And Chinese Literature In The Perspective Of World Literature, Zhang Yingjin
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
This paper delineates Yan Lianke's literary status in line with David Damrosch's tripartite definition of world literature, and then reexamines the bipolar assessments of modern Chinese literature in Western Sinology in terms of international cultural politics as represented by the Nobel Prize in Literature. With reference to two key words in Mo Yan's Nobel acceptance speech — "human" and "transcendence" — the paper further explores the contemporary transformation of realism and Yan Lianke's "spiritual realism" in theory and practice.
Moé: Soft Politics In Contemporary Visual Culture, Ming Wu
Moé: Soft Politics In Contemporary Visual Culture, Ming Wu
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Moé is a word frequently appearing in Chinese pop culture vocabulary in recent years, but its semantics and usage require clarification. Moé, which was borrowed from Japan, has broken the boundary of anime subculture and become a buzzword in mass media. The visuality of moé pertains some typical postmodern traits such like entertainment and flattening. Faux-moé has an extensive popularity that accelerates the confusion between the right and the wrong, the good and the evil. A moé object, constructed by a faux-moé player, could impose soft control and systematic violence to the persons who patronizes it. In this sense, moé …
A Study On The Framework Of "Literary Research Methodology" In 1904 Educational System Reform, Xuehu Chen
A Study On The Framework Of "Literary Research Methodology" In 1904 Educational System Reform, Xuehu Chen
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
This paper attempts to discuss the framework of "Wenxue Yanju Fa" (Literary Research Methodology) in the 1904 educational system reform and tries to describe and understand the space which this reform carved out for the coming knowledge production and theory formation. During the late Qing dynasty and the early Republic of China period, the institutionalization efforts to construct the discipline of literary studies kept much of Chinese traditional culture and its literature. As a specific device, the envisaged course of "Literary Research Methodology" was constructed mainly on traditional learning and local imagination, and it was marked with the characteristics of …
The Differentiation Aesthetics In The Representations Of The Clothing, Food, Residence And Traveling Of Migrant Peasant Workers, Bo Feng, Deming Xu
The Differentiation Aesthetics In The Representations Of The Clothing, Food, Residence And Traveling Of Migrant Peasant Workers, Bo Feng, Deming Xu
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Clothing, food, residence and traveling make up the daily life of people, and the first three are the basic needs of life while traveling becomes the condition for the three. The different preferences in clothing, food, residence and traveling means of the migrant peasant workers reflect the politics based on the distinction between the urban and the countryside. In the novels about the migrant peasant workers, the representations of their daily life in terms of clothing, food, residence and means of traveling highlight the aesthetics of differentiation. The pursuit of the lifestyle of the citizens is shown as the motivation …
The Human-Nature Relationship In The Pre-Cultural-Revolution 17-Year Literature, Yu Wang, Liu Hong
The Human-Nature Relationship In The Pre-Cultural-Revolution 17-Year Literature, Yu Wang, Liu Hong
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The paper argues that the human-nature relationship in the literature of 17 pre-Cultural-Revolution years cannot be interpreted from the sole perspective of ecological ethics, but it should be examined together with the way and the knowledge background under which the relationship was represented. The relationship shows to be two-folded. On the one hand, man regards nature as "the other," when the consciousness of war culture is introduced in the field of man-nature relationship, taking nature as the target to be conquered through in spiritual and technological levels. One the other hand, nature becomes part of the constructive process of the …
Modern Myth And Its Types Of Presence, Xianglin Yan
Modern Myth And Its Types Of Presence, Xianglin Yan
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Myth is still alive in modern society and even in post-modern society, but its mode of existence, constructed as contemporary myth, is different from that of the traditional myths. Contemporary society also has its mythical thinking and mythological patterns. Contemporary myth is the contemporary creation responding to the creator' purpose and motivation, and it embodies the aesthetic characteristics of industrial society and cultural industry. The existence types of contemporary myth include the myth of science, myth of nation, myth of ethnic group, myth of heroes, myth of politics, and myth of consumption. To some extent, social ideology and literary production …
Playthings Of History, F. Jones Andrew, Dun Wang, Yiren Zheng
Playthings Of History, F. Jones Andrew, Dun Wang, Yiren Zheng
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The 1930s Republican China exhibited a historically determinate and pervasive cultural logic in which children and commodities were consistently linked together as part of a larger narrative of national development. This is attested by the visual and narrative logic of Sun Yu's film Playthings. Often lauded as a classic of Shanghai cinema, Sun Yu's film narrates China's national salvation by way of a seemingly unlikely figure: toys. Released on National Day in 1933 and promoted in the popular press as a call to arms, this particular "toy story" — which focuses on a Chinese toy maker's struggle for survival in …
The Thinking Mode And The Literature Originated From Chinese Characters: The Value-Added Intersection Between Comparative Literature Studies And Cultural Linguistics Studies, Naiqiao Yang
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Scholars posit that thinking mode originated from Chinese characters and the formation principles of Chinese characters show cultural psychology of Chinese. The formation principles of Chinese characters may take on the nature a cultural meta-code, and morphological features of Chinese language as a symbol system define Chinese literature as s literature grounded in Chinese characters. Comparative literary studies need to investigate how Western comparatists and sinologists grasp Chinese thinking mode that is encoded by Chinese characters as different languages will shape different ideas of literary writing.
Modernist Imagination Of Space And The Hardship Of Returning Home: An Investigation Centered On The Literature Of Minority Nationalities In Contemporary China, Changzhong Li
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The capacity of cultural bearing of the minority nationalities in China is relatively weak, their ecological environment relatively fragile, and vehicles of cultural heritage relative scarce, which contributes to the two-sided problem comprising of existential and cultural spaces. These spaces are gradually invaded in the process of modernization by the foreigners who, as the cultural Other, have not only contaminated the aboriginal space of existence with their physical presence but also undermined the indigenous cultural tradition through their representation. The imagination of the Other's space helps confirm the construction of selfhood, but the question "where is home" becomes the modernist …
The Public Nature And The Governance Of Contemporary Visual Culture, Xueqin Min, Liyong Zheng
The Public Nature And The Governance Of Contemporary Visual Culture, Xueqin Min, Liyong Zheng
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Contemporary visual culture is encroaching on daily, social and political lives of the public with diversified content and in hi-tech forms. The public nature of contemporary visual culture brings much convenience for itself to integrate into public space, guide public value and participate into public governance. Empirical investigations show that visual culture representing everyday life tends to provide entertainment and interest, and visual culture reflecting social life is hypersensitive to the public nature, while visual culture referring to political life is becoming more pronounced for its remedying social inequality and nurturing participation habits. Visual culture is provided with an unprecedented …
The Sociality Of The Aesthetic And The Reconstruction In Critique: From Zhu Guangqian's "Misreading" Of Croce, Lang Jin
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
This paper investigates the construction of sociality in Zhu Guangqian's aesthetics by analyzing his acceptance of Croce. Misreading is almost a consensus in the studies of Zhu Guangqian's acceptance of Croce, while this might also overshadow his aesthetics construction. When returning to Kant as his point of re-departure, Zhu Guangqian not only directed his critique toward Croce but also the western tradition of idealist philosophy in general, and it is his continuous concern of the sociality of the aesthetic that lies behind his critique. This concern of his starts with his critique of Croce's aesthetics and is realized when he …
Changing Authorship: The Evolution On Literary Practices And Theory, Miaomiao Xu
Changing Authorship: The Evolution On Literary Practices And Theory, Miaomiao Xu
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Focusing on the changing concept of author, this paper tries to investigate the new demands posed to literary theory from the new media by contextualizing its argument in the combined development of literary theory, literary history and new media. The paper claims that literary theory, due to its development in the context of print culture, increasingly shows its deficiencies in the current media. In terms of the authorship, individual authors may not have been essential for literary creation, and the concept of determined authors is established in written system and the print culture and re-enforced with the regulations of intellectual …
Representation, Working And Imagination Of Power: A Study On "The Young Newcomer To The Department Of Organization" And Other "Against-Current Novels", Qinghua Cao
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
One important aspect of Wang Meng's novel The Young Newcomer to the Department of Organization and other so-called "Against-Current (Niliu) Novels" is the questioning, exposing and challenging of the way power is represented and worked and the way power is related to its representation and working in these novels, but this has been overlooked for quite a long time in the research scholarship. The paper argues that these novels call into interpellation the representation and working of power in reality while the imagination of power permeated in these novels performs the function of interpellation similar to the in-practice power interplay. …
Traumatic Memory: Psychic Reality And Cultural Representation, Jingrong Zhao
Traumatic Memory: Psychic Reality And Cultural Representation, Jingrong Zhao
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Traumatic memory exhibits three fundamental features, namely, the individualistic nature, personal experience, and emotional nature, among which personal experience is the most important because the subject of traumatic memory has a pre-privilege of emotion and ethics. The ultimate goal of the subject with traumatic memory is to get through the negative effects of trauma on the subject and make him cope with the real life. Traumatic memory can be studied from the perspective of its origin in the reality and its cultural representation. Trauma in the form of individual suffering could become collective crisis only when it is studied in …
Towards A Pluralistic Open System Of Literary Theory Studies: A Survey Of British And American Literature Theory Textbooks In Recent 30 Years, Hongbo Li
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
In the past 30 years, the drastic changes in literary theories led to corresponding changes in British and American literature theory textbooks. Their textbooks focus on the study of the theories, closely related to literary texts, and exhibit the features such as the diversity of perspectives, openness of concepts, attention to the contemporary, and emphasis on practice. In comparison with them, Chinese course books of literary theories need to get rid of the constraints of essentialism in terms of literary concept and knowledge construction, and construct a student-centered system of literary theory studies that can tackle with the contemporary literary …