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Commentary On Translating Tao Yuanming And Li Shangyin, Andrew Gudgel Dec 2014

Commentary On Translating Tao Yuanming And Li Shangyin, Andrew Gudgel

Transference

Notes by Andrew Gudgel on the translation of three Chinese poems into English.


Frost Moon And Autumn Arrives By Li Shangyin, Andrew Gudgel Dec 2014

Frost Moon And Autumn Arrives By Li Shangyin, Andrew Gudgel

Transference

Translated from the Chinese by Andrew Gudgel.


Cloudy Skies By Tao Yuanming, Andrew Gudgel Dec 2014

Cloudy Skies By Tao Yuanming, Andrew Gudgel

Transference

Translated from the Chinese by Andrew Gudgel.


The Banyan Tree, Untitled, To --, A Dried Flower--For Someone, Palace-Cave Mountain, And Nanmu Forest By Cai Qijiao, Edward A. Morin Dec 2014

The Banyan Tree, Untitled, To --, A Dried Flower--For Someone, Palace-Cave Mountain, And Nanmu Forest By Cai Qijiao, Edward A. Morin

Transference

Translated from the Chinese with commentary by Edward Morin, Dennis Ding, and Fang Dai.


Ecocriticism And National Image In 舌尖上的中国 (A Bite Of China), Mingwen Xiao Dec 2014

Ecocriticism And National Image In 舌尖上的中国 (A Bite Of China), Mingwen Xiao

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Ecocriticism and National Image in 舌尖上的中国 (A Bite of China)" Mingwen Xiao examines the multi-faceted contents of the popular 2012 television series. Instead of exhibiting delicacies made by professional chefs in luxury restaurants, A Bite of China displays local food and dishes made by ordinary people. By focus on every-day food preparation, the show constructs a performance where class, ethnicity, gender, age, and other social markers are blurred and the geographically and ethnically diverse ways of food preparation and consumption appear as a cohesive Chinese culinary identity. Xiao argues that A Bite of China plays a role …


Three Dimensions Of Kant's Laws Of Nature, Youfeng Hu Nov 2014

Three Dimensions Of Kant's Laws Of Nature, Youfeng Hu

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

In his critical philosophy, Kant defined the duality of nature and held nature to be a thing-in-itself that was unknowable in the metaphysical sense. From the perspective of epistemology, however, Kant confined nature into the phenomenal field, claiming the priority of man over nature through the artificial legislation for nature. The inconsistence between nature in phenomenal sense and in the thing-in-itself sense was obvious. In his Critique of Judgment, Kant reconsidered the interconnection between the two different concepts of nature through his re-explanation of nature from the teleological perspective, and he eventually put forward the proposition that nature generates itself …


Chinese Drama Writing And The Evolution Of The Drama Genre, Changji Li Nov 2014

Chinese Drama Writing And The Evolution Of The Drama Genre, Changji Li

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The researches on Chinese drama style and the drama writing have much to be desired in the scholarship on ancient Chinese drama studies. This paper approaches the genre of Chinese drama from the perspectives of genetic and typological relationships, and it proposes that Chinese ancient drama form matures as the result of literati's integrating folk arts into the drama writing. In terms of narrative methods and structure, the paper analyzes the essential features of drama-prose style (xiwen) from the Southern Song to Yuan Dynasties, the plot-content style (guanmu) in the variety drama (zaju) and the legend style (chuanqi) in the …


The Pragmatic Path Of The Somatic Turn In The Western Aesthetics, Xiaohua Wang Nov 2014

The Pragmatic Path Of The Somatic Turn In The Western Aesthetics, Xiaohua Wang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Since the early 20th century, a somatic turn has presented itself as increasingly influential in the Western aesthetics. As the science of sensory recognition, it initiates a return to the body-subject and life-world. In this process, the contribution of pragmatism is prominent. Since Charles Peirce proposed the principle of practice, the perspective which values the body has been introduced. The endeavors of scholars like William James, John Dewey and Charles William Morris have all constructed the artistic-esthetic paradigm on the basis of body experience. From the 1980s onwards, scholars such as Richard Shusterman and Mark Johnson put forward and define …


"Organic Entity" And The Evolution Of Zhu Guangqian's Early Thought, Hongbing Zhou Nov 2014

"Organic Entity" And The Evolution Of Zhu Guangqian's Early Thought, Hongbing Zhou

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The concept of "organic entity" is the foundation of Zhu Guangqian's early intellectual thoughts since 1927. This concept was repeatedly used from 1927 to 1944 in Zhu's work to observe, describe and interpret life and art, and it was also used as a dominant concept to re-examine the evolution of Western philosophy and science in the 19th and 20th centuries, and re-examine the Kantian-Crocian influence upon him for the construction of his own aesthetic theory of "artification of life." The researches on Zhu's concept of "organic entity" are generally superficial for their focus on his organic knowledge, which has not …


A Canon Of Fantastic Literature Studies: On Tzvetan Todorov's The Fantastic: A Structural Approach To A Literary Genre, Fang Tan Nov 2014

A Canon Of Fantastic Literature Studies: On Tzvetan Todorov's The Fantastic: A Structural Approach To A Literary Genre, Fang Tan

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Fantastic literature is an important part of the world literature, and also one of the long-term concerns of the Western literary criticism, resulting in a large amount of works and studies. In his The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre, Tzvetan Todorov defines from the perspective of the structuralist poetics the fantastic novels as a literary genre and tries to reveal the mechanism inherent in the genre. Although this book has been the subject of considerable controversy since its publication, it is still, because of its original and insightful views, a must-read canon for the study of the …


A Synopsis Of International Symposium On "Body Aesthetics And Contemporary Aesthetic Culture", Jiaxing Wang Nov 2014

A Synopsis Of International Symposium On "Body Aesthetics And Contemporary Aesthetic Culture", Jiaxing Wang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

No abstract provided.


On The Abstraction Of Modern Art And The End Of Art, Xiuyin Peng, Zhendong Wu Nov 2014

On The Abstraction Of Modern Art And The End Of Art, Xiuyin Peng, Zhendong Wu

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

This paper aims at analyzing the abstraction as a method in the creative process of modern art. The paper argues that the reasons for abstraction may be attributed to two aspects. One aspect is the heteronomy from social modernity, and the other is the autonomy of the development of art itself. Since the birth of modern art, the meta-narrative of abstraction has been overdrawn through repeated transformations, which results in the claim of "the end of art." However, from a perspective not limited to the idea of progressiveness of art, art has not reached its end yet. Instead, art is …


On The Reference Of Directional Positioning In The Han-Dynasty Stone Carvings, Qing Wang Nov 2014

On The Reference Of Directional Positioning In The Han-Dynasty Stone Carvings, Qing Wang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

In the Han-Dynasty stone carvings, the objects positioned at the centre of the planar graph are designated as the reference of directions, with the left on the surface standing for the east and the right for the west. This is the opposite to the direction positioning practice in modern graphics or cartography. This principle of direction positioning was not confined to the stone carvings alone, but was a general rule applied in almost all of the Han rituals such as the sword-wearing ritual of kings, the formation of marching armies, the ceremonial formation of vehicles and horses, and even the …


A Revolutionist's Loyalty Crisis And Its Dissolution: A Re-Reading Of Wang Meng'sBu Li, Dongfeng Tao Nov 2014

A Revolutionist's Loyalty Crisis And Its Dissolution: A Re-Reading Of Wang Meng'sBu Li, Dongfeng Tao

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Wang Meng's novel Bu Li ("Bolshevistic Salute") is about the loyalty crisis of the protagonist Zhong Yicheng, a Chinese revolutionist. The terror of the loyalty crisis lies in that Zhong can never be an independent being but is totally attached to revolution itself. The faith of a revolutionist and the loyalty to Chinese Communist Party serve as the foundation of Zhong's identity, and his relation with revolution becomes the sole reason and meaning for his life as well as the guarantee for him to be a "human." The only thing he can be is a revolutionist and a son of …


An Exploration Into Cao Xueqin's Notion Of Novel Writing Through The Titles Of His Dream Of The Red Chamber, Qingyu Li Nov 2014

An Exploration Into Cao Xueqin's Notion Of Novel Writing Through The Titles Of His Dream Of The Red Chamber, Qingyu Li

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Cao Xueqin’s novel Dream of the Red Chamber had five different titles. These titles reflect the author’s different notions of novel writing. The title A Precious Mirror to Love Affair implies an allegorical discipline, the titles The Story of the Stone and Emotional Monk’s Record indicates authentic record of the real things, the title Twelve Beauties of Jinling tries to be a legend to question the world, and the final title A Dream of the Red Chamber expresses the notion of "a dream being the same as a play." The change of titles reflected the evolution of Cao Xueqin's notion …


Ecological Sensibility In Contemporary Western Cinema And The Theory Of Ecocinema, Shaoyi Sun Nov 2014

Ecological Sensibility In Contemporary Western Cinema And The Theory Of Ecocinema, Shaoyi Sun

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

This paper aims at introducing and analyzing the theory and practice of ecocinema inspired by literary ecocriticism at the turn of the new century. Based on an examination of the main concepts and lines of thought of some prominent ecocinema theorists and thinkers in the West, the paper argues that ecocinema has acquired its own terminology and become independent of its literary predecessor. This is mainly demonstrated in four aspects. First, from the perspective of cinema as a visual medium, debates about ecocinema have centered on issues of cinematic representations, film genres, and visual languages. Secondly, from the perspective of …


Is Modernity A Mirror Or A "Flower"?: On The "Vision" Of Rojas's The Naked Gaze: Reflections On Chinese Modernity, Wei Lin Nov 2014

Is Modernity A Mirror Or A "Flower"?: On The "Vision" Of Rojas's The Naked Gaze: Reflections On Chinese Modernity, Wei Lin

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The essential issue of visual culture is to position the self and the world through vision. Rojas's subject of research is the literature and arts in the late Qing Dynasty to modern period, and he attempts a visual interpretation of Chinese modernity through constructing a three-dimensional visual system, in which the self-mirroring subjects, audience and object co-exist. He maintains that the body, as a visual object, is both a mirror-like screen, and the unreal image in the mirror, which provides the subject of visual desire as the other with a concrete channel of presentation. Through the interrelationship between time and …


Qi Rushan And Mei Lanfang's Chinese Montage: Modernizing Peking Opera Through Recomposition, Tingting Zhao Nov 2014

Qi Rushan And Mei Lanfang's Chinese Montage: Modernizing Peking Opera Through Recomposition, Tingting Zhao

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

This paper examines the efforts of Qi Rushang and Mei Lanfang to transform the traditional Beijing opera into a new art form for the modern audience during the 1930s. The method of Chinese montage they used, which they named as "recomposition," is essentially a technique that deconstructs and reassembles the elements of traditional opera, such as gestures and mise-en-scene, while keeping intact its traditional essence. This paper hopes to interpret the connections between Eisenstein, Brecht, and Peking Opera, so as to explore the strong correlations between artistic forms and montage across borders in the 1930s. It highlights the fact that …


The Practical Orientation And Hasty Theorization In The Expansion Of Literary Theory: An Unfinished Case On Literature And Literariness, Nan Gao Nov 2014

The Practical Orientation And Hasty Theorization In The Expansion Of Literary Theory: An Unfinished Case On Literature And Literariness, Nan Gao

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The expansion of literary theory has been accepted by all the related circles. However, the theoretical explorations into it appear haste and leave much to be clarified. Central to the expansion is the argument over the relationship between literariness and literature, whereas literariness becomes crucial for social life to be included into literary theory. In fact, the concept of literariness itself is not sufficient to support the theory. The leading role of literariness in the expansion arises from the so-called marginalization of literature, which reflects a strong sense of loss among the elitist thinking of literature and literary theory. However, …


A Supplement To Kant's Antinomy Of Appreciative Judgment, Junfeng Cao Nov 2014

A Supplement To Kant's Antinomy Of Appreciative Judgment, Junfeng Cao

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The antinomy of appreciative judgment proposed in Kant's Critique of Judgment is a unique way of representing the inherent contradiction in aesthetic experience, and it embodies Kant's dialectics in its developmental form. After an elongated process of complex reasoning, Kant believed that he had elaborated clearly the antinomy but actually his solution did not achieve the desired purpose. The present paper starts with Kant's standpoint and way of thinking, and tries to supplement his elaboration of the antinomy of appreciative judgment. The re-examination of Kant's antinomy of appreciative judgment may cast some light for contemporary aesthetics.


A Synopsis Of "'Tsla Young Theorists' Forum", Jiguo Gao Nov 2014

A Synopsis Of "'Tsla Young Theorists' Forum", Jiguo Gao

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

No abstract provided.


American Contemporary Literary Studies And Natural Science, Yongfang Qi Nov 2014

American Contemporary Literary Studies And Natural Science, Yongfang Qi

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

This paper aims at delineating how the American literary research has adopted the methods traditionally applied in natural sciences and analyzing its achievements. The paper claims that the adoption of natural science methods in literary studies has the following main achievements. When the dichotomy between fiction and reality is undermined, the mutual influence between them can be realized, and the concept of literature and the scope of literary studies can be re-defined. The unique nature of literature has been highlighted to explore all possible dimensions of the world for the seeking the evolutionary direction for human being, while literary studies …


Capitalism And FreedomAs Text/Antitext: Deconstructing And Decentering Friedman’S Neoliberal Canon, Gregory Mahoney Josef Nov 2014

Capitalism And FreedomAs Text/Antitext: Deconstructing And Decentering Friedman’S Neoliberal Canon, Gregory Mahoney Josef

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

An odd symmetry appears when reading Milton Friedman's canonical neoliberalism in tandem with Jacques Derrida's deconstructive techniques: both authors, it can be argued, are ensconced in a Heideggerian, capitalist hermeneutic. Both offer reactionary discourses for "justice" per their respective paradigms of a radical freedom of choice. This congruence marks a special opening — not just the standard invitation to deconstructive relativism — to re-read Friedman in a manner consistent with Derridean, subjective freedoms that Friedman would otherwise ascribe us in the marketplace. More importantly, this re-reading takes place following a ten-year period that saw global neoliberalism reach absurd heights of …


Contributions Of Kantian Aesthetics To The World And Its Significances To China, Jishan Lin Nov 2014

Contributions Of Kantian Aesthetics To The World And Its Significances To China, Jishan Lin

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

For quite a long time, Chinese aesthetics circle approaches Kant's aesthetics with a strong ideological political stance, which has led to gross misunderstanding and distortion of Kant's aesthetics and resultant failure in evaluating Kant's contributions to the world and the significances to China. The most significant contribution of Kant's aesthetics is that it starts with the modern aesthetic dilemma of empiricism and rationalism aesthetics and departs from there to break through the subjecthood-centred thinking in the aesthetic history. Kant's aesthetics reaches the solution to the focal aesthetic problem of "how pleasant feeling can share the nature of the ration," which …


Earl Miner, Comparative Poetics And The Construction Of World Poetics, Ning Wang Nov 2014

Earl Miner, Comparative Poetics And The Construction Of World Poetics, Ning Wang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

In the international circles of comparative literature and literary theory, comparative poetics dealing with literary theory still occupies a position although elite literature and its theory are impacted by cultural studies. In this aspect, American comparatist Earl Miner's pioneering contribution should not be neglected. Although Miner was not the first to shift scholarly attention to the study of Eastern comparative literature and literary theory, it may be argued that his intercultural explorations into comparative poetics have surpassed his precursors or contemporaries like René étiemble, Douwe Fokkema and James Liu, entering the field of general literary and theoretical studies. Miner's contribution …


The Formation Of Chinese New Poetry As Translated Modernity, Liming Chen Nov 2014

The Formation Of Chinese New Poetry As Translated Modernity, Liming Chen

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

This paper approaches the modern construction of Chinese "new poetry" from the perspective of translingual practice, and argues that the production of the new poetry is a combined result of the pursuit of cultural transformation and the influence from the Western modernity while translation functions as the medium. Chinese literary modernity presents itself first in the Europeanized baihua (vernacular mandarin). The vernacular mandarin baihua was not originated in as late as the late Qing dynasty or the early Republic of China, as commonly believed, but as early as the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, for its close relation with …


The Narration Of Desire In The Late Qing Dynasty Novels And Modernity, Weiwei Fang Nov 2014

The Narration Of Desire In The Late Qing Dynasty Novels And Modernity, Weiwei Fang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The Late Qing Dynasty was a period of rapid transition from the traditional to the modern society, and the novels produced during the period took on a special character due to society background and scholars' mentality. Not only does the unique narration of desire in the novels exhibit as "the excess of economy" that subverts the tradition, but also the imagination of the feminine and the urban writing took on strong atmosphere of the modern.


What Kind Of Game It Is? A Comparison Between Bourdieu’S Literary Field And Becker's Art World, Wenchao Lu Nov 2014

What Kind Of Game It Is? A Comparison Between Bourdieu’S Literary Field And Becker's Art World, Wenchao Lu

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Pierre Bourdieu's literary field and Howard S. Becker's art world are influential in the sociological study of art. Some claims that both the literary field and the art world are essentially consistent and some claims that Bourdieu focuses on conflict while Becker on cooperation. This paper, however, argues that neither claim has grasped the essential difference between them. To compare the two concepts, this paper uses the metaphor "game" as a framework and concludes that Bourdieu's literary field is a zero sum game while Becker's art world is a game. The participants in the literary field are a caricature role, …


The Literariness Of Theory: A New Perspective On Writing Textbooks Of Literary Theory, Yang Liu Sep 2014

The Literariness Of Theory: A New Perspective On Writing Textbooks Of Literary Theory, Yang Liu

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Toward the second decade of the 21st century, literary theory textbooks should absorb the recent developments in literary theory around the world. In contrast to the two existent measures of aniti-theory and the politicization of theory, "the literariness of theory" may be more instructive in the writing of college literary theory textbooks. Literariness has gradually entered the academic field of humanities and liberal arts, and it has helped to form a legitimate discourse for the discipline of literary theory. This discourse is mediated through situations which have the contents such as narrative, fiction, imagination, metaphor, language, dialogue, suspense, anecdotes and …


The Paradigm Shift Of Literary Theory And Its Discourse Renovation, Wenfang Yao Sep 2014

The Paradigm Shift Of Literary Theory And Its Discourse Renovation, Wenfang Yao

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The literary theory discourse has undergone extensive innovation in recent decades in two main ways: using the existent concepts and inventing new concepts. When inventing new concepts, two methods are seen to be reinvesting existent concepts with new meaning and changing the meaning of the existent concepts. These transformation mechanisms are corresponding to Kuhn's theorization of paradigm and Foucault's theorization of discourse. The discourse innovation is required for the paradigm shift in literary theory, and it embodies the prescriptive features of the literary theory paradigm such as the age, society, economy, geography, and language, giving new content and form to …