Chinese Studies Commons^™

Signifying And The Feeling Of Differences, Samuel Weber

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

What does Werner Hamacher's concept of archiphilology have in common with Saussure's view of intralinguistic， differential function in language? Perhaps the way in which the indefinite of language itself “slowly defines itself，” both in response to past acts of appropriations， and appealing for new signifieds the meaning of which can only be seized and unseized over time. Several of Kafka's short stories illustrate how literary works play out the same tension within what can be called a “progressive and digressive” narrative， warding off any internal principle of closure or conclusiveness while continuing to require endings and answers. Holderlin's “Remarks on …

Guest Editor's Overview, Yue Zhuo

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

No abstract provided.

Children’S Gothic In The Chinese Context: The Untranslatability And Cross-Cultural Readability Of A Literary Genre, Chengcheng You

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

As an emerging literary subgenre in the twenty-first century, Children’s Gothic challenges and blends the norms of both children’s literature and Gothic literature, featuring child characters’ self-empowerment in the face of fears and dark impulses. The foreignness and strangeness that pertain to the genre haunt the border of its translatability. Daniel Handler’s A Series of Unfortunate Events (1999­–2006), written under the pseudonym Lemony Snicket, poses a chain of translational challenges due to its linguistic creativity, paratextual art, and mixed style of horror and dark humor intended for a child readership. To investigate the interplay between Children’s Gothic and its (un)translatability …

Decolonizing Chinese Literary And Cultural Studies In “World Literature”: Decolonial Translation And Magical-Traumatic Realism In Can Xue, Deanna Ren

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study takes a genealogical and historicized approach to Mandarin-to-English translations, including my own, of Can Xue through neoliberal discourses of “world literature.” I ground these Anglophone discourses in the legacies of Sinology, area studies and post-Cold War historiography. Arguing for the necessity of a decolonial translation practice in Mandarin-to-English translation, I propose magical-traumatic realism (an intersection of magical realism and traumatic realism) as an alternative lens with which to contextualize, decolonize and re-embody Can Xue’s works in both source and “world” contexts.

Potentiality, Resistance And Bare Life: Giorgio Agamben On Melville’S Bartleby, Yanjun Wang, Yaping Wang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The idea of potentiality runs through Giorgio Agamben’s political philosophy. In his analysis of Herman Melville’s Bartleby, the Scrivener, Agamben thoroughly interprets potentiality and bare life through Bartleby’s “I prefer not to”. Agamben believes that Bartleby’s inoperativeness is the highest form of resistance, which exists as pure potentiality against the power apparatuses in modern society. Agamben considers Bartleby’s inoperativeness as the exact way to redeem bare life in modern society, where the state of exception already becomes normality. This article starts with Agamben’s reading of Bartley, focuses on potentiality, resistance and bare life to analyze the pure and thorough way …

The Fallacy And Verification Of Criticism On Contemporary Chinese Confessional Poetry, Lei Wei

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Contemporary Chinese confessional poetry has engaged much academic attention despite its short existence between the 1980s and the 1990s. The confessional poetry has been related with female poetry by scholars since the beginning, and they have been criticized for lacking Chinese cultural characteristics, skills or aesthetic values etc.. However, contemporary Chinese confessional poetry is not exclusively the product of female poets, as there are quite a few male poets who created some fine confessional poems. Chinese confessional poetry of new period turned out to be embodied with a literary form of strong nationalistic features and contain rich elements of traditional …

Las Voces Desde La Liminalidad Sino-Peruana: –Una Lectura Comparativa De Mongolia Y La Vida No Es Una Tómbola–, Jing Tan

LSU Master's Theses

Chinese immigrants first arrived in Peru in the mid-19th Century. Since then, the Sino-Peruvian community has lived through myriad vicissitudes. Today, despite its indisputable influence in Peru’s history, it is still largely invisible in society, just as the concept of an Asian Latin American identity remains elusive in the national consciousness. In the literary and academic world, the scarcity of a voice highlighting Chinese legacies in Peruvian literature is echoed by the dearth of such a voice in the criticism regarding works by Sino-Peruvian writers about Sino-Peruvian experiences.

This comparative analysis engages with two novels that evince deep parallelism with …

Big Community In Little Chinatown: How Asian Americans (Re)Present Their Community Today, Meghan Morrison

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

This paper looks at a series of modern Asian American pieces of media in order to analyze how women and LGBT+ depict and create their community, especially in relation to another marginalized ethnic group. By examining the relationship between these groups within popular media, we can uncover how Asian Americans choose to represent themselves and gain a deeper understanding on how marginalized groups choose to portray themselves.

The Somaesthetics Of The Multitude: The Politico-Aesthetic Logic Of Antonio Negri And Michael Hardt In Constructing The Subjecthood, Jinying Li

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

"The Multitude", a concept reconstructed by Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt after the deconstruction of the subjecthood by post-structuralism, is a combination of singularity and commonality, and physicality and affection, and it is the subjecthood of postmodern society that overthrows the control of the empire and constructs the commonwealth. In the early days, Negri began to explore social issues from the perspective of the relationship between art and the multitude. From this perspective, his logics in constructing the multitude can be summed up as aestheticization and bio-politicization, and its inner trajectory of reasoning can be summarized as a transformation from …

Nelson Goodman On Exemplification, Hui Zhang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Nelson Goodman holds that there are two forms of symbolizing, namely, denotation and exemplification. In denotation, a symbol is used to refer to an object, while in exemplification the exemplifier has a label or is referred to by a label. Exemplification explains how abstract works perform symbolic functions and express metaphorical exemplifiers. Being highly creative and influential, Goodman's theory is valuable and can serve as a reference for Chinese scholars.

“Inaesthetics” And The “Passion For The Real”: Alain Badiou On The Avant-Garde Art, Kaifeng Xia

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Alain Badiou distinguishes between the didactic schema, classical schema and romantic schema in art, and further suggests that the avant-garde art does not create a new schema, but synthesizes the previous schemata into a didactico-romantic schema. Badiou strives to propose a new schema, the "inaesthetics" schema, which is both immanent and exclusive, that is, taking art as a truth-procedure. The inaesthetics schema is actually modeled around the avant-garde art, as Badiou believes that the avant-garde art embodies the "passion for the real" which implies two approaches of "destruction" and "subtraction." When Badiou attempts to combine these two approaches in his …

Wang Guowei's Theory Of Intuition And New Practice Of Symbolizing With Affective Image In Ci-Poetry, Bailing Yang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The category of "perceiving" runs through all the fields and the whole process of Wang Guowei's research. He insists that art is based on intuition, but this does not mean that he is an anti-rationalist. He is not opposed to the use of bi(comparison) and xing (affective image) in classical Chinese poetry, yet reforms these methods with his theory of intuition, thereby giving them connotations of symbolism in modern Western poetics. Taking sorrows for the change of seasons, observations of moonlights, and astronomical phenomena as examples, this article analyzes the symbolic means of intuitive cognition embodiedin Wang Guowei's statement, "all …

Mao Qiling's Comments On The Romance Of The West Chamber And The Value Of His Concept Of “Lyric Example” In Literary Criticism, Xurong Yang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Theatre critics of the Ming dynasty spoke only occasionally about the "example (li)" of the Yuan-dynasty plays (za ju). In early Qing dynasty, Mao Qiling proposed "lyric example ( ci li)" as the primary commentary approach to The Romance ofthe West Chamber. The concept of "lyric" refers to the Yuan-dynasty plays, and the concept of "example" refers to the conventions, commonalities, laws and paradigms. Mao's concept of "lyric example" provided a comprehensive analysis of the language, the temperament, the system, and the performance as well as the critical standards in evaluating not only The Romance of the West Chamber but …

The Breakthrough And Limitations Of Qi Biaojia's Xiqu-Play Criticism, Shiyang Zhang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

In his letters to friends, Qi Biaojia expressed his hope to compile a collection of xiqu-plays in the Ming dynasty to promote contemporary xiqu-plays with textual criticism of the manuscripts. Qi inherited Wang Jide's idea of being the first to bridge the gap in the xiqu world and Lv Tiancheng's "intention to be close to the secular." Therefore, he tried hard to collect all the xiqu-plays in the Ming dynasty available to him, and compiled a monograph on xiqu-plays. Qi focused on manuscripts rather than on the playwrights or actors as his basis of evaluation. As opera music meters and …

Multidimensional Construction And Deconstruction Of The Claim That The Eight-Legged Essay Was Epitomized In The Ming Dynasty, Xiong Zheng

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The claim that the eight-legged essay was epitomized in the Ming dynasty was solidified by scholars of the Ming and Qing dynasties with the belief that each generation had an exemplary genre since the Yuan dynasty. The claim was constructed from four dimensions of the three relationships between writing and, respectively, societal politics, scholar's vitality, and tradition of adhering to the classics and doctrines, as well as generic transformation and its value. The value of the eight-legged essay in the Ming dynasty had also been criticized in the above mentioned four dimensions by the Ming and Qing dynasty scholars. However, …

The Aesthetic Concept Of On The Absence Of Sentiments In Music And A Reflection On The Construction Of Chinese Aesthetics, Kai Lin

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Ji Kang's ( 223-263) On the Absence of Sentiments in Music has three types of aesthetic concepts. First, listeners of sorrowful music release his emotions through listening. Second, peaceful listeners obtain aesthetic pleasure through appreciating the beauty of musical form. Thirdly, peaceful listeners focus specifically on moderate music, in order to acquire peace and preserve his health. Going beyond utilitarian emotions, Ji Kang laid more emphasis on the second type of aesthetic concept, which was close to Kant's definition of disinterestedness. Yet, he regulated desire due to vigilance, rather than stressing "aesthetic freedom" like modern aesthetics. Therefore, Ji Kang's three …

Fictional Text And Reality Of The Possible, Shusheng Zhang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

This article explores the issue of reference in fictional texts, that is, the relationship between fictional texts and reality. Paul Ricoeur thinks that the reference of poetic language is not cancelled, but only suspended. Through its semantic creativity, it possesses the ability to transform reality and to turn our personal environment into a habitable world. The interpretation of the concept "world /Welt" and "environment /Umwelt" by Martin Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer shed light on the significance of fictional texts in reality, for they propose to us possible modes of existence in the ontological sense. In other words, fictional texts can …

A Paranoid Anxiety Of Life And Its Artistic Expression: A Thematic Study Of The Story Of Zhuangzhou Drumming The Basin, Yugui Jing

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The original story of "Zhuangzhou Drumming the Basin" as first appeared in the Stories to Caution the World has been circulated both in China and abroad, and the motif of "unfaithful widow" is given distinctive artistic forms of expression. Zhuang's wife, the female protagonist in the story is constructed as an embodiment of carnal desire. Such representation reflects the status and tragic existence of women in a patriarchal society. Zhuangzi, who tests his wife's faithfulness, is in fact a representative figure of ancient scholars of little means who are separated from society and family, and a sexually jealous character of …

Juxtaposition, Narrative Strategies, And Multimedia Explorations: Representation Of Time In Comics, Xu Lian

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Following the tradition of narratology and comics studies, this article explores various ways of representing time in comics and displays the complexity and diversity of temporal representation in the grammar of comics. It focuses on spatialization, closure, order, speed, and innovation enabled by virtue of multimedia explorations. Spatialization strategies such as juxtaposition and collage are basic ways to represent time in comics, and closure of perception is also critical in understanding time. However, new forms like music comics and webcomics have significantly changed the structure of temporal representation.

The New Development Of Marxist Literary Criticism Today: An Interview With Barbara Foley, Shengzhen Zhang, Barbara Foley

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

This interview with Prof. Barbara Foley covers a wide range of critical approaches and new challenges in the fields of Marxist theory, Marxist literary criticism, and Marxist pedagogy. Prof. Foley holds that Marxism provides a meta-theory, a privileged standpoint from which to study the connections between literature, politics and history. After examining fundamental principles of Marxism － － historical materialism, political economy, and ideology critique － － Foley analyzes long-standing debates over the nature of literature and sets forth key concerns of Marxist literary criticism. This interview also examines a broad range of literary works － － from classical to …

“Poetic Wisdom”Or “Poetic Knowledge”: On The Interlingual Transformation Of “Della Sapienza Poetica”, Weixuan Lin

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

While the term “Poetic wisdom” as the translation of “della Sapienza Poetica” helps to convey the aestheticconnotation of the original, it shadows the meaning of “poetic knowledge” and its epistemological background. Since René Descartes's rationality denied the value of philology, Giovanni Battista Vico tried to use “della Sapienza Poetica” as his method to seek truth in philology, and as his determination to defend philology. When approaching “della Sapienza Poetica” from the perspective of “poetic knowledge," we can understand and justify many of the puzzling arguments in Vico's New Science and give due respect to the concept which lacks among Western …

Third Reading Of Early Film Theory: The Turn To Dispositif, Affect, And Action Comedy, Yingjin Zhang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Early film studies has spread rapidly since the 1990s and become a mainstay in film studies in Euro-American academia, bringing technological innovation, visual culture, and urban modernity into film historiography and thus enriching scholarship in a field previously dominated by close textual reading. This article continues my tracking of early film studies but concentrates on methodological issues of the recent focus on “media archaeology.” My “Reading Early Film Theory: Collective Sensorium and Vernacular Modernism” (2005) introduces Miriam Hansen's theory and Zhen Zhang's book on reconstructing a cultural history of Shanghai film. My follow-up “Rereading Early Film Theory: In Pursuit of …

Imaginations Of The Wei And Jin Dynasties In The Time Of Historical Fracture: Rereading Zong Baihua's "On The Tales Of The World And The Beauty Of The Jin People” In The Context Of The Second Sino-Japanese War, Lang Jin

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Zong Baihua's “On The Tales of the World and the Beauty of the Jin People”is the foundation for research on the aesthetics of the Wei and Jin dynasties. It expounds on the aesthetic spirit in the Wei and Jin dynasties with discourses of "consciousness of personality", which is often traced back to the period of the May Fourth Movement. In fact, this understanding is the result of reinterpretations in the new era. An overlooked fact is that this work was written during the Second Sino-Japanese War, and should be interpreted in the historical and cultural context of this period. The …

Testimony, Narrative, And History: The Plague And Some Issues Of Literature As Testimony, Dongfeng Tao

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Albert Camus's The Plague establishes a mode of“literature as historical testimony”and demonstrates a profound shift in the relationship between history and narrative, and it implies that literature ( narrative) is inevitably embedded in history. Literature as a testimony to the Holocaust does not record the Holocaust but also offers a new perspective to understand it. This actualizes the transformation of history as it changes the nature of historical knowledge. The history in The Plague is written in the mode of an allegory, and it establishes a profound metaphorical relation between the plague and the Holocaust. As both the plague and …

Urban Imagination And The Idea Of The Nation-State In Modern Chinese Literature, Yongdong Li

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Cities and nation-states are both substantive and conceptual. The study of urban imagination in modern Chinese literature needs to go beyond the model that builds on the concept of a uniform city and village. It requires an understanding of the limits in interpreting modernity and cultural perspective, and an emphasis on exploring the polysemy and fluidity of city images. Cities and nation-states constitute a “problem field,”in which the way of looking at and imagining cities are often marked by metaphors of the nation-state. Urban imagination and the idea of the nation-state are mutually illuminative. The expression of the idea of …

Chinese Peking Opera Anthology: A Text-Centered Study Of Peking Opera, Dongdong Li

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Since 1880, Peking opera (jingju) anthologies have developed rapidly and collected a large number of plays. Therefore, the text-centered study of jingju based on anthologies has been established, which could fulfil the gap in existing jingju studies that focus on performance. Specifically, by outlining the basic forms and evolutionary rules of the selected texts, we can survey the full picture of text-centered anthologies in development. By foregrounding text-centeredness and literariness of playscripts, we can open up a new field of textual studies beyond the studies of performance. The major aspects of theoretical studies of jingju anthologies include theories of anthology, …

On Wang Yuanhua's Ideas Of Jingju And His Reflection On The May Fourth Movement, Wei Li

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

It is extremely meaningful, on the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of Wang Yuanhua's birth, to restudy his ideas of jingju. Wang's thoughts on the revival and development of jingju from the perspective of cultural heritage are highly valuable. He believes that, in terms of moral ideas, jingju is a medium and vehicle in disseminating grand traditions of Chinese culture towards smaller traditions. Meanwhile, considered as a performance system, jingju embodies the“bixing”mindset, the lyrical expression with mind-object interaction, as well as the flexible distance-immersion dynamic among performers and spectators. This results in a complete system of“virtuality, conventionalization, and ideographics”. He …

A Hundred-Year Modern Peking Opera: Practices And Experiences, Hengfu Zhu

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The hundred-year modern Peking opera (jingju) has gone through three stages. In the first stage, ranging from around 1910 to around 1964, jingju was used as agit-prop. In the second stage from 1964 to 1976, there emerged a series of new forms in acting, music, and stage art, with which theatre practitioners strove to use art to perform revolutionary historical stories or the struggle and construction in the socialist period. The third stage from 1976 to the present is characterized by a thematic departure from“politics”and“revolution”to the portrayal of“nobodies”by focusing on characters' psychology; this stage also features novel and beautiful physical …

Popular Literature And Art, National Forms And The Re-Presentation Of Lyricism, Fan Nan

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

In the 1930s and 1940s, debates about“popular literature and art”and“the‘national form’of literature”emerged successively in China. While affirming the popular and national literary forms, the literary form that Chinese intellectuals highly admired served as the“Other”in the debating discourse and thus it has never received positive theoretical account. This article intends to re-present this literary form through an integrated examination of cultural interest, class, and literary form. Thanks to the promotion of the May Fourth New Literature, the radical attitude of petty bourgeois culture and the general conceptualization of enlightenment, this literary form is marked by the surge of lyrical elements. The …

Cabaret Voltaire Or Kabarett Voltaire? Three Breakthroughs Of The Concept Gesamtkunstwerk, Duozhi Chen

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The birthplace of Dadaism in Switzerland is often simply translated into Chinese as “Voltaire Pub”. As an art salon, it actually finds its prototype in artists' pubs in Germany. The word “Cabaret” translated as “pub”, is also the general term for the entertaining variety shows therein,which originated in France. After its introduction into the German-speaking area, Cabaret became Kabarett and its cultural connotations and ways of presentations underwent great changes due to its collision with the avant-garde movement. Therefore, the simplified understanding of Cabaret as a pub downplays the significance of the Cabaret Voltaire in the history of modern art. …