Chinese Studies Commons^™

Aesthetic Anthropology Should Focus On The Aesthetic Connotation Of Ethnic Culture, Zheng Wang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

This paper argues that aesthetic anthropological research should be directed at aesthetic ideas and their external forms of ethnic culture, as well as the general principles of the gestation, change and development of these ideas and forms. When the aesthetic contents of ethnic cultures are contaminated by industrial civilization and popular culture, with their unique core value increasingly undermined, aesthetic anthropology will lose ground of its academic focus. Aesthetic anthropology should aim to reveal the aesthetic connotation of ethnic cultures and maintain the positivist unique quality of anthropology.

Cleanth Brooks's Theory Of Fiction And His Critical Practice, Feiliang Fu, Shunqing Cao

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Cleanth Brooks' critical study on fiction, especially on William Faulkner's, is a remarkable achievement. Brooks claimed that there is no essential difference between fiction criticism, poetry criticism and drama criticism. In fiction criticism, Brooks' emphases remain on textual skills such as irony, paradox and symbol, taking fiction as an organism that should be independent of the social life and political propaganda, and opposing Romantic sentimentalism. Nevertheless, Brooks also lay great weight to the historical context and geographical environment of an author, emphasizing the influence of an author's life experience and entire body of works on a particular fiction, and attaching …

Discourse Power And The International Status Of Chinese Contemporary Literary And Art Theory, Shengxun Shi

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Discourse power is a problem emerged when Chinese art encounters the Western discourse hegemony. Theoretical expression is crucial to the acquisition and presence of the discourse power over art, while the discourse power over literature and art theory is essential to Chinese art discourse power. International status is an entailing problem of the internationality of discourse power and it encompasses discourse power into the global framework of totality. However, in the global framework of literary and art theory China remains silent, and thus the issue of the international status of Chinese literary and art theory emerges. Chinese theoretical scholars have …

From The Peach Blossom Fan ToThe Classic Of Mountains And Seas: A Way On Chinese Literature Of Professor Shi Ting-Quan (Richare E. Strassberg), Guozhong Peng

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Professor Shi Tingquan (Richare E. Strassberg) in UCLA had been exposed to Chinese culture in his childhood. Later, he studied in Princeton University for his Doctor's degree, his research was on K'ung Shang-ren's play The Peach Blossom Fan and later he wrote a book named The World of K'ung Shang-ren: A Man of Letters in Early Ch'ing China. In the book, he argued that K'ung put many things he had experienced into his play and made it into a semi-biographical play. K'ung's Peach Blossom Fan and the beautiful sceneries of the South Yangtze River depicted in this book further intrigued …

On The Tragic Consciousness Of Chinese Aesthetics, Zhirong Zhu

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

In Chinese aesthetics, tragic consciousness shows as the poetic experience of a subject's empathy with objects, and this experience covers the bereavement or life-long separation, which may also reflect in the melancholic sense for the passing of spring and the coming of autumn in Chinese ancient literary works. The tragic consciousnesses of the literati, the hero and the female have their particular characteristics and inherent spirit. In ancient Chinese tragedies is seen a general transition of spirit from the heroic to the common and secular. On the one hand, this tragic consciousness is deeply influenced and constrained by Chinese cultural …

On The Ways For Literature To Pervade Reality, Xuan Wu

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The paper raises the issue on how valid the traditional categorization of creative methods such as realism, romanticism and modernism can explain the uniqueness and originality of classical writers such as Dostoevsky and Lu Xun etc. It observes that classical writers have shared experience in the originality of literary creation which shows in their unique questions in philosophy or humanity targeting at the social reality of their own time while establishing their own understanding upon the questions and the understanding leads to the unique structuring of literary works. Therefore, a methodological schema can be found between individual concerns, personal understanding …

The Antiquity-Revival Movement And The Study Of Ci-Poetry In The Ming Dynasty, Yi Yu

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The Antiquity-Revival Movement had a profound influence on literature in the Ming Dynasty, which also showed in poetics as the devaluing of poetry written in the Song Dynasty and establishing a direct lineage between the then prevailing Ci-poetry to the ancient poetic tradition of the Han-Wei and Six-Dynasties. Thus, the study of Ci-poetry in Ming Dynasty expanded its scope of exploration into aspects such as the tonal, lyrical and aesthetic qualities in poetry. Due to the inherent affinity between the Ci-poetry in the Southern Song Dynasty and Shi-poetry in the Song Dynasty, the poetics of Ci-poetry in the Ming Dynasty …

The Construction Of Refined-Vulgar Ci-Poetry System In The Northern Song Dynasty With Liu Yong As A Benchmark, Licheng Xu

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Before the Song Dynasty, Ci-poetry was a form of ballad singing, often having an impromptu nature, and therefore it was regarded as a genre of lowbrow literature. Later, scholar-officials in the Northern Song Dynasty were attracted by the new form and tried to make it a literary form to entertain their taste and talent. During the process of legitimization and canonization, Liu Yong, as a representative popular Ci-poet in the Northern Song Dynasty, played a uniquely important role. Scholar-officials identified vulgarity as the characteristic of Liu's ci-poems as they mostly belonged to the popular lowbrow lyrics. The scholar-officials then benchmarked …

The Gestation Of Foundational Meaning In Aesthetical Activities, Yuan Zhu

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

In anthropological aesthetic studies, aesthetic activities in primitive society are usually part of others activities. Aesthetic studies show that art, due to its intuitive nature, is foundational in human practice, and that aesthetic activities are not attached to other activities but underlie all the activities. The conflict between the two theoretical approaches has raised questions which concern whether the original, fundamental and authentic value of aesthetic activities is applicable to primitive society, and whether the primitive people is a people without aesthetic activities. Therefore, there is a need to substantiate the original gestation of the foundational meaning of aesthetic activities …

The Tool And The Entity: The Language Philosophy In Zhuangzi's Aesthetics, Xianglin Yan

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Zhuangzi's critique on language exhibits a deep contradiction in his thinking as he considered language to be both a tool and an entity, despite its dialectical nature. Language is a type of poetic spiritual existence and contributes to the production of culture, and the text of Zhuangzi illustrates Zhuangzi's poetic view of language.

漢族洪水神話傳說中的神異動物：論鯀禹治水神話及陷湖傳說, Kit Man Poon

Lingnan Theses

洪水，是世界性的神話、傳說母題，中國自古水患頻繁，其中漢族產生大量洪水神話和傳說。鯀禹治水神話和陷湖傳說仍然傳頌至今。

受萬物有靈觀念和動物崇拜影響，人類將動物神格化、形象化，創造大量神異動物。洪水神話傳說中的神異動物擁有怪誕外形和神秘力量，能夠掌治洪災，體現先民的豐富想像和對力量的崇拜。神異動物與人類的互動關係象徵性地展現人類對洪水態度的兩個面向：鯀禹治水神話中全獸形和半人獸形的神祇擔當人類英雄治水的強敵或助力，百靈護佑的禹征伐神異動物反映人類反抗自然的積極精神。陷湖傳說中洪水是神異動物對人類的懲罰，包括報應、報答、報恩三方面的果報概念，呈現神異動物較為人性化的面貌。陷湖傳說中人類不能亦不會逃過洪水，顯示人類無法違背命運的宿命意識，強調神異動物的權威性。除了強烈的宗教意識，陷湖傳說呈現惡者遭殃善者得救的對立，具懲惡揚善的教化作用。陷湖傳說的道德意識結民間信仰，加強傳說的阻嚇性。

歷代的神話和傳說中神異動物以不同形態反覆出現，呈現與人類的不同關係，神異動物在洪水母題中的意義卻未有專門討論。本論文從變形、主題、二元結構三個方面，分析神異動物在鯀禹治水神話和陷湖傳說中扮演的角色及顯示的意義，探討當中的漢族文化思維。

Fearless: Bruce Larson And Alice Carter, Bruce A. Larson, Alice Carter

SURGE

This Monday, Professor of political science and public policy, Bruce Larson, Assistant Director of Development, Alumni, and Parent Relations, and Technology, Alice Carter, and daughter Lily Larson will be leaving for a semester in Beijing, China. Professor Larson will be joining the ranks of Gettysburg College’s Fulbright recipients, teaching two courses at the China Foreign Affairs University while conducting his research.

Kantian Influence On Early Zhu Guangqian, Qian Cao

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Based in a close reading of Zhu Guangqian's pre-1949 works on aesthetics, the paper delineates the relationship between Zhu's early aesthetics and Kant and points out the fundamental influence of Kantian aesthetics on the formation of Zhu's aesthetic theory. The paper claims that Croce's apparent influence shown as the psychological aspects in Zhu'a pre-1949 aesthetics should be understood as selective acceptance after Zhu's acceptance of Kantian aesthetics. Kant's main influence upon Zhu's aesthetics is Zhu's acceptance of the uninterested non-utilitarian formalism and the sublime theory, although Zhu had held some reservation about Kant's aesthetics, especially after 1930s when he began …

A New Horizon Of The Study Of Classical Chinese Literature, Bowei Zhang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

In recent decade, the research on overseas Chinese classics has become a new trend in the international sinology. There are profound internal and external reasons to this trend, and the formation of the trend is realized by newly-found materials which call for a new theoretical proposition and a new method of thinking. The "novelty" about the trend shows in the close-reading of new materials and the reflection of academic position of sinology, and these practices may be expected to initiate a new departure for the Chinese scholarship in the 21th century. In brief, the research paradigm will shift from "the …

On Benjamin's Critical Model Of "Aestheticization Of Politics" Via An Analysis Of Italian Futurism, Yun Zhou

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

In the epilogue of "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction", Walter Benjamin developed a critical model of "aestheticization of politics" in which Italian Futurism is criticized as fascism, which has resulted in heated debates on the relationship between the avant-garde and fascism. This paper attempts to revisit Benjamin's critical model of "aestheticization of politics" by describing and analyzing the context of modernity in which the model is formed in hope of disclosing Benjamin's insights into modernity. The paper tries to justify the model's critical effectiveness for the avant-garde and the contemporary culture. The paper then proceeds …

On The Relationship Between Self-Annotations And The Lyrical Implications In The Tang-Dynasty Poetry, Na Wei

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Self-annotation is an important and a popular phenomenon in the history of the Tang-Dynasty poetry, and it creates a complex relationship with the inner lyrical implications of poetry. Different modes of self-annotations in different developmental phases result in different relationships between self-annotations and poetic sentiments. The relation evolves from estrangement during early Tang and Dali Reign, to integration in Middle Tang and to the final recession in the Late Tang. This evolution shows that self-annotations follow a trajectory around lyrical implication of the poetry with a centrifugal or centripetal movement. The paper concludes that the mapping of the relationship between …

The Significance And Influence Of Gu Jin Ci TongAs Exemplified By The Poet Wang Hong, Xuejun Chen

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The compilers of Gu Jin Ci Tong (A Definitive Anthology of Ci-Poetry from the Ancient to the Present) favored the Southern Song Dynasty Ci-Poetry and slow-tune Ci-poetry, and allowed for the coexistence of both graceful and the bold styles of Ci-poetry, with a special highlight on Xin Qiji's Ci-poems. The principle of selection and the idea about Ci-poetry influenced the compilation of Ci Zong (A Comprehensive Anthology of Ci-Poetry) by Zhu Yizun. Wang Hong, a key figure who set the fashion of Ci-poetry in Meili, played an important role behind Zhu's compilation. After moving to Meili, Zhu developed a close …

The Urban Imagination Of Shanghai Literature: With Focus Upon The 1990s', Yuan Feng

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Urbanity and urbanization became the two key objectives of Shanghai Literature which claimed to aim at contemporaneity, literariness and experimental spirit, and the aims had also helped to construct a context for the magazine's popularity in the 1990s', and this made the magazine a leading literary periodical in China. One the one hand, it promoted varied ways to discuss, describe and present urban scenes. On the other hand, it excelled in the literary magazine market through its internal restructuring and external positioning to create a style of being open and multifaceted, and hence the magazine succeeded in establishing a literary …

An Investigation Into The Relationship Between The Categories "Qi" And "Vein" In Ancient Literary Theory, Xiang Xiong

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

"Qi" (vital force) and "Vein" are very important for traditional Chinese medicine and geomancy, and they are significant categories in ancient Chinese literary theory as well. The relationship between "Qi" and "Vein" relates to the meaning of the compound phrase "Qimai." When the two-character phrase is of subordinate structure, it refers to a channel by which "Qi" flows in a literary text. When it is of parallel structure, the phrase points to the filling-up of "Vein" by "Qi" and the controlling of "Qi" by "Vein." The evolution of the concept of "Wenqi" (literary vital force) makes possible the concept of …

Le Cinéma Comme Expérimentation Philosophique, Badiou Alain, Yang Li

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Badiou starts with three concrete situations and proposes that the mission of philosophy lies in thinking about choice, distance and exception. As cinema creates a new synthesis from ruptures, it becomes an experimentation of philosophical situation. Philosophy can reveal the implications of the cinema from five differents dimentions: image, experience of time, continuity, order of the arts and art/non-art. Cinema doesn't deny difference, but construct a new relation out of heterogeneous relations between different art forms, constructed time and real duration, forms of popular culture, models of grand moral conflicts, and between love and politics, etc. Cinema is an absolutely …