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Full-Text Articles in Chinese Studies
"If There Is No God, Nothing Is Permitted At All": Žižek On Cyberspace, Yuchen Dai
"If There Is No God, Nothing Is Permitted At All": Žižek On Cyberspace, Yuchen Dai
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Cyberspace and virtual reality are two topical concepts in new media studies. Among diverse discourses, Slavoj Žižek's critique of cyberspace is highly prominent. In constrast to the mainstream technological determinism, Žižek argues that the rise of cyberspace initiates an era characterized by "the retreat of big Other," and without the Other that functions as the Master to safeguard the norm for individual's actions. This ressesion of Master's function means, as Žižek claims in light of Lacanian psychoanalysis, that the subject will not be informed of what should be desired, and the subject is thus deprived of the access to effective …
"Ecological Justice": Two Kinds Of Metaphysical Defense, Qing Zhao
"Ecological Justice": Two Kinds Of Metaphysical Defense, Qing Zhao
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
This article aims to undertake an epistemological discussion of ecological justice with de-subjectivity as its core theme from both the perspectives of Adorno's ecological theology and Shi Tao's proposition of "spokesman for shan-shui". The former argues that the negative dialectics holds the possibility of approaching nature itself, and the latter advocates the harmony of heaven and human. Specifically, Adorno elevated the status of nature in the realm of human beings created by God, whereby nature acquires divinity and subjectivity is suppressed. In a different yet compatible way, by conceptualizing the harmony between heaven and human for the exclusivity of subjectivity, …
"The Dark-Houred Clock": Embodiment And Abstraction In Celan's Poetry, Lemberger Dorit
"The Dark-Houred Clock": Embodiment And Abstraction In Celan's Poetry, Lemberger Dorit
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Celan's poetry is replete with metaphors that function in various ways. This article looks at two opposed functions of metaphor there: embodiment and abstraction. They rest on the fact that most cognitive processes occur unconsciously, leaving us with only a limited ability to understand their connections to metaphors. This makes it difficult to understand how a metaphor bridges between faraway and even opposed semantic fields. The dual metaphorical functions will be studied as used in three themes of Celan's language: (1) language as expression and as concealment, (2) interaction with the Other as a key to self-constitution, and (3) the …
An Access To Europe's "Límpensé": François Jullien's Conceptualization Of Classical Chinese Aesthetics, Zhenhua Han
An Access To Europe's "Límpensé": François Jullien's Conceptualization Of Classical Chinese Aesthetics, Zhenhua Han
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The classical Chinese aesthetics that French sinologist François Jullien tries to construct is centered on such notions as plain (la fadeur), non-objet, désontologie, and l'immanence. In so doing, Jullien aims to give Europe an access to "l'impensé" via Chinese aesthetics. However, his endeavour presents itself to be more like a derivative of post-structuralist theories of Foucault and Deleuze and an invention than a reliable representation of China. On the fundamental level, Jullien's views of Chinese thought follows those of Hegel and Max Weber. Although he tries to reexamine Hegel's negative comments on China, his seemingly exquisite discussions fail to rectify …
On Rancière's Concept Of Modern Fiction, Danhong Cao
On Rancière's Concept Of Modern Fiction, Danhong Cao
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Jacques Rancière has a long-standing interest in fictional issues. In recent years, he has published several monographs, in which he ponders the nature of modern fiction and presented unique insights. Rancière's concept of modern fiction is based on the critique of the traditional fictional rationality pioneered by Aristotle and the inheritance of scholars and writers such as Schiller, Keats, Flaubert, Woolf, Auerbach. It points out that the core of modern fiction is no longer the imitation of an organic whole action, but rather the manifestation of juxtaposed sensible micro-events. Changes in content lead to changes in the form of modern …
Digital Humanistic Transformation Of World Literature, Distance Reading And Literary Criticism: Franco Moretti's Evolution Logic Of Literary Theory, Xiaohui Chen
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Franco Moretti is one of the most controversial scholars of world literature today. Compared with others', his world literature is not of "substantive existence", but of "conceptual existence". From the perspective of conception, Moretti regards world literature as a holistic thinking mode of dealing with the evolution of literature in the era of globalization, and it is also the problem itself that needs new critical methods to solve. As a solution to the problems of world literature by Moretti, "distant reading" symbolizes the paradigm revolution of reading objects, reading subjects and reading methods with its "second-hand reading", large-scaled reading, collaborative …
History In Round Numbers: Why One Hundred?, Prendergast Christopher
History In Round Numbers: Why One Hundred?, Prendergast Christopher
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
This article is about the practice of dividing historical and literary-historical time into units of 100 years, with a particular focus on the semantics of the French term "siècle". It examines how in the course of what we now call the seventeenth century the term "siècle" shifted in meaning from "age" or "epoch" to the round number 100. It contextualizes the shift with reference to the great Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns, while also reflecting on the implications and consequences of a counterfactual alternative to modern historical chronology.
International Politics Of Literary Theory: A Study Of Western Theory As Doctrines And A Discipline, Jinghua Lin
International Politics Of Literary Theory: A Study Of Western Theory As Doctrines And A Discipline, Jinghua Lin
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The event of the publication of René Wellek and Austin Warren's Theory of Literature (1949) signals that European literary criticism was transformed rapidly into literary theory by American scholars. To be more specific, from then on, British New Criticism that emphasized close reading was replaced by American New Criticism that valorized analysis of semantic structure, and Russian formalism was rediscovered and reactivated in this process. Afterwards, more theoretical schools sprang up, such as semiotics, structuralism, hermeneutics, post-structuralism, deconstructionism, and so on. And along with the scientific literary theory, many other theories, like Western Marxist criticism, feminism, gender studies, new historicism, …
Shakespeare's "World History": J. G. Herder's "Sturm Und Drang" Drama Theory And The Radical Enlightenment, Qing Feng
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Influenced by Johann Gottfried Herder and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the German "Sturm und Drang" movement regarded William Shakespeare as a model of gifted drama poets. Viewing Shakespeare as a "genius" in imagination for the possible "world history", Herder applied pantheistic philosophy to his drama theory and developed a concept of radical enlightenment. Comparing Herder's view with Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's interpretation of Shakespeare as well as his Aristotelian enlightenment dramatic idea, a great difference can be revealed: Lessing aimed to cultivate civic morality, while Herder intended to evoke the Volk's passion towards freedom and political action.
What Is The Antimimesis Of Narrative? An Exploration Of Brian Richardson's Unnatural Narratology, Biwu Shang
What Is The Antimimesis Of Narrative? An Exploration Of Brian Richardson's Unnatural Narratology, Biwu Shang
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
As a founder and major proponent of unnatural narratology, Brian Richardson is one of the most prominent narratologists in contemporary Western academia. Defining unnatural narrative as "one that contains significant antimimetic events, characters, settings, or frames", Richardson analyzes its unnaturalness from such aspects as story, discourse and narrative representation apart from revealing its ideological function. The controversies of unnatural narratology, to a large extent, center on the concept of the unnatural, and methodology and applicability of the theory. To fully develop "a poetics of unnatural narrative," unnatural narratologists, Richardson in particular, need to further clarify the concepts of unnatural narratology …
A Study Of The A-Signifying Semiotics Of Félix Guattari, Shubao Dong
A Study Of The A-Signifying Semiotics Of Félix Guattari, Shubao Dong
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
This paper mainly discusses Guattari's a-signifying semiotics. He opposes Lacan's Structuralist psychoanalysis as well as the tyranny and hegemony of the signifier. By borrowing Hjelmslev's glossematics and Pierce's semiotics, he builds modes of semiotization, and develops the a-signifying semiotics, which offers a new perspective and dimension for the theory of subjectivity and the psychoanalytic criticism, and further forms a schizoanalytic criticism based on the a-signifying semiotics.
A New Investigation Of The Ideas "Fu Ji" And "Fu Xin", Hui Tao
A New Investigation Of The Ideas "Fu Ji" And "Fu Xin", Hui Tao
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The theory of "Fu Ji" and "Fu Xin" in Xijing Miscellanea has always been considered by scholars as an important material about Sima Xiangru and aesthetic criticism of the ode in the Western Han Dynasty. However, this theory was proposed by someone else in Wei-Jin Periods rather than Sima Xiangru. It had great significance not only because of its precise description of the ode in the Han Dynasty, but also because it revealed how the literary ideas and metaphysics in Wei-Jin Periods affected contemporary people's unique insights in terms of the noumenon and the creation of the ode.
Cultural Code: The Public Image Of Imagination, Hecheng Li
Cultural Code: The Public Image Of Imagination, Hecheng Li
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Cultural code, as the public image of imagination, provides an analytical model for the integration of mind and social order. Vico's civil theology, through the ideas of "imaginative concept" and the "metaphor", explains the origin of human common sense, and shows the meaning of mind that the poetic wisdom brings to the community. Since the emergence of subjectivity philosophy, this has critical significance for distinguishing image from being itself. Arendt's idea of the "exemplary" combines the concrete and the common by special images' interactive communication, thereby achieving a common commonality. This is how the mechanism of the imagination progresses from …
Mimetic Violence And The Issue Of The Other: A New Interpretation Of René Girard, Xue Li, Xiao Bi
Mimetic Violence And The Issue Of The Other: A New Interpretation Of René Girard, Xue Li, Xiao Bi
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
In his study of some literary canons, René Girard, a French literary critic and anthropologist, analyzes human desire and sums up the theory of mimetic desire, which means that a person's desire, as the desire of the subject, always imitates the similar desire that belongs to the mediator of the desire. Girard distinguishes the modes of mimetic desire into two types, the external mediation and the internal mediation, and draws a conclusion that the internal mediation would inevitably lead to violence due to the competition between the subject and the mediator. Referring to Roland Barthes's mythologies, this article indicates that …
Preservation And Distortion: The Recording, Editing And Publishing Of Yangzhou Storytelling, Huarong Wang
Preservation And Distortion: The Recording, Editing And Publishing Of Yangzhou Storytelling, Huarong Wang
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Affected by the Chinese Communist Party's policies on literature and art and the aesthetics of written literature, during the recording, editing and publishing Yangzhou storytelling, the editors revised or deleted the undesirable or negative content including the parts that did not comply with the social ideology. Meanwhile, the editors tended to follow the style of written literature to normalize the language of Yangzhou storytelling. On one hand, the recording and publishing work saved some repertoires of Yangzhou storytelling, and let more people know and enjoy Yangzhou storytelling. It also promoted the development of academic research on Yangzhou storytelling. On the …
The Aesthetic Ethics Of Evil: Understanding Evil In Modernistic Narrative, Shiren Tang
The Aesthetic Ethics Of Evil: Understanding Evil In Modernistic Narrative, Shiren Tang
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
With the characters of impersonality and depersonalization, the evil plots in modern fiction is often described intuitively and indifferently, that is great different from the traditional narrative which the moral attitudes are distinctively. It's difficult to understand the complex ethical tenor from the evil plots in modern narrative, so readers also need to understanding some modern aesthetic ethics concepts. These issues are also prominently manifested in Chinese contemporary literature, especially in Vanguard writing and Modernist Literature. From the perspective of evil writing, we can review the Modernistic narrative in Chinese Contemporary Novels, and explore the narrative ethics, at last point …
The Invention Of "Japanese" Literature In Colonial Korea, Or How Shameless Literary Engagement Could Be Under Colonial Conditions, Mihara Yoshiaki
The Invention Of "Japanese" Literature In Colonial Korea, Or How Shameless Literary Engagement Could Be Under Colonial Conditions, Mihara Yoshiaki
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
This is the full-paper version of the 338th Si-Mian Lecture delivered at ECNU on March 17, 2017, which focuses on the "shameless" act of intellectual collaboration committed by Ch'oe Chaes ô (崔載瑞), an eminent scholar of English literature and criticism as well as a prominent "pro-Japanese" intellectual in Colonial Korea, who encouraged Korean writers to contribute to Japanese "kokumin bungaku" [national literature] by writing in the Japanese language. Rather than simply denouncing him as a "shameless" traitor, however, the author of this article tries to salvage the potentially postcolonial problematics he has posed in his theoretical struggle as regards possible …
"What Are Poets For" And Ecological Ethics, Kuiying Zhao
"What Are Poets For" And Ecological Ethics, Kuiying Zhao
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Martin Heidegger's essential question of "what are poets for" is used to explore the relationship between the poet and nature, being, beings as a whole, the thing, and language in the "world's night" of "destitute time". In Heidegger's view, human beings' venture that follows their manufactural willing has led to the vanishing of the thing, the shrink of beings as a whole, destruction of the foundation of all beings, and deprived things and human beings of their homes of being. Then poet's mission is to reflect on the control of technology, to participate in the rescue of the thing, to …
Empiricism, Sense And Modernity Of Aesthetics: Edmund Burke's The Sublime And Beautiful From The Viewpoint Of Medieval Aesthetics, Chen Chen
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Edmund Burke's The Sublime and Beautiful is familiar to Chinese scholars, the studies of which nevertheless are inadequate, as many studies confine themselves to Burke's exposition of the sublime. But in fact Burke implies a critique of the tradition of the medieval doctrine of beauty, which is particularly evident in the first section of the third part of this book. As central concepts in the Scholastic doctrine of beauty in the Middle Ages, proportion, fitness, and perfection are transmitted to Burke's times. Burke, employing John Locke's empiricism, criticizes traditional qualities of the beautiful on the side of the object, and …
Lubomir Dolezel's Literature Fiction And Possible Worlds Theory, Yu Zhang
Lubomir Dolezel's Literature Fiction And Possible Worlds Theory, Yu Zhang
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Lubomir Dolezel is one of the most important literary theorists of the so-called fiction and possible worlds theory in the English world. In Dolezel's Heterocomica: Fiction and Possible Worlds, the author provides a conceptual framework of possible worlds against the one-world frame in traditional fiction study, arguing that fiction worlds are a special kind of possible worlds. Focusing on the fictional universe projected by literary texts and the discursive means of achieving fictional effects, he offers a new approach to narrative and fiction study. This paper is a complete review of the entire system of Dolezel's possible worlds theory, and …
Transcending The "Word-Image" Debate: The Writing Experiment Of T. J. Clark's The Sight Of Death, Yi Zhuge
Transcending The "Word-Image" Debate: The Writing Experiment Of T. J. Clark's The Sight Of Death, Yi Zhuge
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The "word-image" relationship is an important subject of modern Western aesthetics. It represents the division between the writing of art history and that of art criticism. The bone of contention between the two writing camps is whether the art work can be reducible to words. Art writings vibrate between this dualism, and some try to transcend the "word-image" division in theory. In his The Sight of Death: An Experiment in Art Writing, T. J. Clark, by adopting the diary style without a strong style of language, recorded his daily viewing of Poussin's paintings and his deep contemplations. He stresses the …
The Influence Of Gender Theory On Women Studies And Its Debates, Chenghua Zhang
The Influence Of Gender Theory On Women Studies And Its Debates, Chenghua Zhang
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
In the 1970s, gender theory emerged under the influence of the research of the American psychoanalyst Robert Stoller. Scholars in women studies who rely on gender theory focused on the social construction of gender identity, elaborating on how the discourse around men and women shape masculinity and femininity, and how masculinity and femininity construct the hierarchy of men and women. Under the influence of gender theory, researchers conducted research in four areas: the analysis of symbolic images, the construction of different disciplines, the distinction of social roles and the internalization of value systems. Gender theory also prompts us to accept …
The Neo-Noir Crazy Stone Phenomenon, H. Kuoshu Harry
The Neo-Noir Crazy Stone Phenomenon, H. Kuoshu Harry
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The Crazy Stone phenomenon in China is often described as the black carnival of both the movie goers and the concerned scholars. The filmic and discursive enthusiasm for Crazy Stone has drawn much attention to the carnival theory by M. Bakhtin and the postmodern theoretical attention to mass culture. Surveying the cultural implications of craziness and how Crazy Stone connects with both the global as well as domestic film cultures, the author of this article observes the absence of such concepts as film noir and neo noir in this round of discussion and argues that Crazy Stone discourse and many …
The Quarrel Between Philosophy And Poetry In Agamben's Literary Horizon, Hongsheng Jiang
The Quarrel Between Philosophy And Poetry In Agamben's Literary Horizon, Hongsheng Jiang
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The split between philosophy and poetry has long been accepted as natural in Western culture. Agamben maintains that this scission actually engendered serious problems. It is a manifestation of the schizophrenic character of Western culture: the subject cannot fully possess the object of knowledge and experience the wholeness of humanity, leading to alienation of the self and culture. In addressing the old enmity between philosophy and poetry, Agmaben proposes a kind of creative criticism, which joins together criticism and creation, to recover the unity of the fragmented word in Western culture. In Agamben's view, the development of an "interdisciplinary discipline" …
The Theoretical Evolution And Literary Orientation Of "Symptomatic Reading", Wenfang Yao
The Theoretical Evolution And Literary Orientation Of "Symptomatic Reading", Wenfang Yao
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The term "symptomatic reading" initiated by Althusser, as far as the origin of the term is concerned, can be traced to Freud and Lacan. Freud uncovers meaning from slips of tongue, dreams and the symptoms of the insane. Adopting philosophy, psychology and linguistics in rebuilding psychoanalysis, Lacan seeks to restructure, in a scientific and systematic manner, Freud's view that symptoms are meaningful. This is what lays the foundation for the theory of "symptomatic reading" put forward by Althusser. In the process of establishing the theory, Althusser derives the method from the form of negation Hegel investigates in his Science of …
Jonathan Culler And Feminism, Fang Wu
Jonathan Culler And Feminism, Fang Wu
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Jonathan Culler constructs Feminist reading theory from the angle of literary deconstructionism. He elaborates on Feminist reading theory from three facets: reading and interpretation of women's experience, women's reading that identifies with men and that asserts reason. As a male theorist recognized by many women critics, Culler fully affirms Feminism and reflects upon it from a deconstructionist perspective.
Rewriting And Rewritology: A Poststructuralist Approach To Literary History, Jinlong Xiao
Rewriting And Rewritology: A Poststructuralist Approach To Literary History, Jinlong Xiao
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Research on literary history is the most fundamental way to construct the knowledge system of literature, which is mainly divided historically into two schools: contextualism and formalism. They both have major defects, which are caused by their thinking in logocentric binary opposition. A shift of our perspective to poststructuralist binary complementation may enable us to realize that all texts of literary discourse are formed by a rewriting of other discursive texts. Correspondingly, the most proper approach to literary history is to probe into the dynamic complicated relationship between a text of literary discourse and its pretexts. This approach,termedrewritology,includes four major …
Double Inscription And The Concept Of Origin In Lafcadio Hearn's Kwaidan , Yu-Kai Lin Carlos
Double Inscription And The Concept Of Origin In Lafcadio Hearn's Kwaidan , Yu-Kai Lin Carlos
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
To many Western readers, Lafcadio Hearn's Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things, published in 1904, is a seminal work of what they perceive as Japanese kaidan literature. The fact that this work was first published in English for Western readers reveals the transcultural as well as translational nature of this literary genre that is called kaidan in the English-speaking context. The question of the origin of kaidan therefore makes it an interesting case of translation, since this book, in effect, is at once a translation and an inscription of the origin of Japanese kaidan literature in the Western context. …
From Discourse Of Political Practiceto Strategy For Cultural Interpretation: Jameson's Aesthetic Transformation Of Mao Zedong Thought, Yuyu Wu
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
After the Western left-wing movement suffered setbacks in reality, its practice experience has been transformed into a method of textual interpretation. However, there are very limited studies to question how the failure of such political practice is reborn in a new discourse. This paper tries to explain its process through the case of Jameson's transformation of Mao Zedong thought into aesthetic. The transformation finds its expression in three aspects: 1) theory travel — variation occurs as the text travels; 2) the impact of the practice — deviance happens when the text is decontextualized; and 3) the transformative borrowing — the …
Highlights Of Symposium On "Studies Of Contemporary Art: Philosophical And Sociological Dimensions", Zheng Tao
Highlights Of Symposium On "Studies Of Contemporary Art: Philosophical And Sociological Dimensions", Zheng Tao
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
No abstract provided.