Chinese Studies Commons^™

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.

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 …

On The System Theory Tendencies Of Contemporary World Literary Theory, Lan Hao

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Since the turn of the century, explorations into world literary theories have taken on the nature of general systems theory, which has been particularly benefited from the impact Immanuel Wallerstein's world system theory. This trend in the study of literary theories represents an attempt to simultaneously transcend the modern and post-modern paradigm. For this trend, world literature system is constructed with the assumption that literature can be holistically approached, which may foreshow an ambition of a systematic macro-reconstruction after post-modern fragmentation, but this trend may be distinguished from the unity of modernism as it rejects unicentrism. The paper argues that …

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 …

Apocalypse Now: Walter Benjamin And The Legacy Of Political Messianism, Wolin Richard

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Walter Benjamin's essay on the "Kritik der Gewalt" (Critique of Violence) has had a curious afterlife. When it first appeared in 1921, it passed almost unnoticed. However, following the collapse of communism, among proponents of the Cultural Left it acquired a canonical salience, in large measure owing to Jacques Derrida’s systematic reliance on it in "The Force of Law: the Mystical Foundation of Political Authority" (1994). However, many of these later interpretations have overlooked the pivotal role that Benjamin's justification of "divine violence" played in his early attempts to revivify political theology, in "Kritik der Gewalt" and related texts. Finally, …

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 …

New Changes And Redemption: On The Russian Formalism's Genre Theory, Jun Chen

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Russian Formalism has two key features of defamiliarization and scientification, and with these features, Russian Formalism is certain to oppose the classical principles of genre classification. Through the mediation of historic procedural poetics, Russian Formalism is linked with literary genre. Genre can be understood as an aggregated system of characteristic procedure, and the nature of its development can be seen in procedure renovation, the replacement of elegant genre with vulgar ones, and genre subversion. The relationships of different schools of normative poetics are not opposite to each other but continual and successive. Historic procedural poetics enables Russian Formalism to play …

On The Interrelated Dimensions Of Materiality In Literary Criticism, Jin Zhang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Since the end of 20th century, the worldwide literary criticism has turned to the study of materiality and manifested the four interrelated dimensions of literary materiality, namely, the materiality of the signifier of literary language and the material properties of texts, the materiality of literary context concerned with the limitations imposed by the social world of economics and politics, the materiality of the perceiving subject and the body through which an aesthetic experience occurs, and the materiality of the represented objects in response to which the experience takes place. The interaction of these dimensions shifts the focus in literary research …

Revolution And Transcendence: The Aesthetic Transformation In The "New Novel" In The Late Qing Dynasty, Jun Zhu

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The rise of the "New Novel" started the "revolution in the circle of fiction writing" in the late Qing Dynasty. In literary history, the New Novels have not been done justice for the traditional ethics shown in these works were in contradictory with the modern political system. However, it is undeniable that these works had left rather deep influence on Chinese ideology, politics and culture in the 20th century. From Kang Youwei to Liang Qichao, Chinese literature had witnessed a historical process from external transcendence (triggered by the import of exotic political and scientific culture) to immanent transcendence (aroused by …

Social Conventions: The Structural Elements Of Literature, Dakang Ma

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

In literary activities, social conventions are not only a more important and fundamental structural element in the narrative structure of discourse but also the fundamental premise for the comprehensibility, creditability, authenticity and criticalness of literary works. The universality of literature originates from the universal validity of social conventions. Social conventions are constructed in the process of social history, and invariably ideologically grounded with embedded power relations. The paper concludes that one major critical function lies in its exposure of the working of power hidden in the social conventions.

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 …

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 Implication Of History-In-Poetry And The Reception Of Li Shangyin In The Late Qing-Dynasty Poetry Circle, Weizhong Ma, Chen Li

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The debate over emulating the Tang or the Song Dynasty poetry was an important link in the evolution of the Qing-Dynasty poetry, in which the reception of Li Shangyin both pointed a direction for the retro poetics and became in most areas a continuation of territory poetics. The three acceptance models culminated the multi-perspective study of Li Shangyin's poetry. Taking into consideration of the complex social context, the paper claims that the concept of history-in-poetry could become the starting point to investigate the theoretical value of the reception of Li Shangyin in the late Qing-Dynasty poetry circle.

The Landscape Sentiments As The Chinese Symbol And Expression Of An Ecological Art, Guoming Yin

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

In Chinese literature and arts, the sentimens in "shanshui" (mountains and waters, landscape) not only embody an aesthetic pursuit but also form a traditional cultural symbol. The sentiments display the artists’ consciousness of life and manifest the ecological connotation of "man in nature." The preposition of the landscape sentiments as a theoretical categorization may be helpful for the discovery of the universal value and new meaning of Chinese litearay theory in the context of comparative and cross-cultural studies.

The Ingredients Of Comparison: The Semantics Of The Excessive Construction In Japanese, Xiao Li

Publications and Research

Excessives (e.g., this pair of pants is too long) are often considered as a ‘degree construction’ in the literature, presumably because it is assumed that their semantics involves a comparison of degrees. This paper takes a cross-linguistic look at the excessive construction in Japanese and raises the question of whether degrees are a necessary ingredient in the semantics of comparison. Unlike any degree morpheme in English, -sugi ‘to exceed’ can combine with either a gradable adjective (e.g., naga ‘long’) or a non-gradable verb (e.g., yomi ‘to read’) to form an excessive construction. In each case, a semantically different type of …

Cinderella: The Study Of Cross-Cultural Encounters In Pre-Modern Societies, Jae Ho Kim

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

The vast number of Cinderella variants across the world is staggering and almost unfathomable. Hundreds of versions exist all across the world including Africa, Europe, and Asia. Most people are familiar with the modern Cinderella version written by a French author in the 17^th century. But unbeknownst to a majority of the population, this story dates back centuries ago from earlier time periods. One of the earliest written accounts of the Cinderella story was found in China about 850-860 A.D and the name of the protagonist was Yeh-hsien, instead of Cinderella. By means of comparative textual analysis, three versions …

Huānyíng Nǐ Lái Dào Bgsu: A Guidebook To Bgsu, Jane Powell

Honors Projects

This project is intended to address the needs of Chinese international students in the U.S, specifically those studying at Bowling Green State University. The principle goal is to create a guidebook to student life at BGSU, focusing of academic success, lifestyle adjustment, and connections to domestic students. This guidebook utilizes both academic research, as well as individual student input. Furthermore, much of the guidebook’s content is in both English and Chinese, allowing for greater comprehension of the information.

In addition, this project includes an accompanying essay in order to better analyze the concepts of the academic research. This essay compares …

Go Nation: Chinese Masculinities And The Game Of Weiqi In China (Book Review), Wenqing Kang

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Addressing The Needs Of Chinese International Students: A Guidebook To Bgsu, Jane Powell

Honors Projects

This project is intended to address the needs of Chinese international students in the U.S, specifically those studying at Bowling Green State University. The principle goal is to create a guidebook to student life at BGSU, focusing of academic success, lifestyle adjustment, and connections to domestic students. This guidebook utilizes both academic research, as well as individual student input. Furthermore, much of the guidebook’s content is in both English and Chinese, allowing for greater comprehension of the information.

In addition, this project includes an accompanying essay in order to better analyze the concepts of the academic research. This essay compares …

The Girl With The Peanut Necklace: Experiences Of Infertility And In Vitro Fertilization In China, Ruoxi Yu

Student Work

A 2014-2015 William Prize for best essay in East Asian Studies was awarded to Ruoxi Yu (Berkeley College '15) for her essay submitted to the Department of Anthropology, “The Girl with the Peanut Necklace: Experiences of Infertility and in vitro Fertilization in China.” (Marcia Inhorn, William K. Lanman Jr. Professor of Anthropology, advisor; Susan Brownell, Professor of Anthropology at USML, secondary reader.)

Ruoxi Yu’s essay, “The Girl with the Peanut Necklace: Experiences of Infertility and in vitro Fertilization in China,” situates original research within the history of the one-child birth control policy and the tension between the …