Chinese Studies Commons^™

On The Intervention Of Literary Means In Painting And Its Boundary, Xiaoli Wang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

With Chinese equivalent dictum of "Ut Pictura Poesis" as a guiding principle, literarization became a trend in Chinese painting, especially in the literati painting. Traditional literary rhetoric methods such as metaphor and symbolism were appropriated into painting so as to express personal sentiments. The inscriptions on the painting expand the planar painterly world, and strengthen the expressiveness of the painting. The intervention of literary methods in imagistic thinking is subjected to the artistic autonomy of paintings, and painting as a form of plastic art have their own aesthetic objectives that determine the boundary of the application of literary methods.

The Dissemination Of American Deconstruction And Its Reception In China, Xiaoming Chen

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

This paper investigates how American deconstruction is received in China from 1980s and finds that American deconstruction has always been overshadowed by its French counterpart. The paper observes that deconstruction in China is disseminated with an emphasis on critical notion instead of technical analysis in the form of close reading. From the mid-1990s, American deconstruction begins to strengthen its spread and influence in China, while the deconstructive nature is downplayed due to its technical requirements in textual analysis when its dissemination works in framework of narratology. While the reaches of American deconstructive literary criticism need further investigation, the literary theory …

The Ethical Landscape In The Transformation Of Modernity In Shen Congwen'sBorder Town And After, Yan Chen

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Shen Congwen's writing of Xiangxi (the Western Hunan area) shifts its focus from legendary stories to history-directed experiences. The activities of his characters are put into the mosaic of historical experiences, so as to present the modern transformation of the ancient community life in the Western Hunan area. This transformation shows not only as the wonder and amazement in the psychological and conceptual dimensions but also as conflicts and crises in the power relations and moral order, as well as the resultant formation of an ethical landscape different from the traditional one. Although the criticism of modern urban civilization remains, …

The Jiayin Style Of Writing In A Europeanized Classical Chinese With Elasticity And Its Relation With The New Literature, Qingshu Meng

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Jiayin style of writing was shown typically in the political essays in 1910s, and this linguistic style performed a new function of prose writings in the classical Chinese language at the time when the media of literature had changed. The style showed a different standpoint from the New Literature, but had profound historical link with it. The link showed in the common acceptance, interpretation and construction of modern disciplinary system and the shared pursuit of logicality of writing style and the grammar system. They had also adopted a commensurate strategy and mode of knowledge production, and had faced the same …

The Reversibility Of Art, Lucretius, Gravity And Semâ Bekirovic'sHow To Stop Falling, Allen Graham

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

This paper reflects on art works recently displayed in an exhibition in the Lewis Glucksman Gallery, Cork, Ireland, in 2011. In particular it focuses on Semâ Bekirovic's video art work How to Stop Falling, in order to expand upon a theory of art's reversibility. The paper uses the work of the Roman philosopher Lucretius, along with Jacques Derrida's deconstructive encounter with Lucretius in his essay "Mes chances/My chances," to meditate on art's resistance to the entropic logic of the natural world. The paper also employs Lucretius alongside modern scientific understandings of the cosmos to reflect on Bekirovic's and others' engagement …

The Significance Of Literary History In The Evolution Of Literary Meta-Language, Han Qian

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Contemporary Chinese scholars usually take the linguistic turn as a major watershed in Western literary criticism, and this view takes the intrinsic transition in literary criticism and theory as a revolutionary change. The paper argues that the "scientific turn" of the 19th century weighs more in the literary criticism history, and that the linguistic turn is merely a necessary consequence of the scientific turn. The epistemological turn of 19th century's literary criticism redefined the objectives and functions of meta-language in literature, while the creation of modern universities and the evolution of scientific discourse also led literary criticism to the epistemological …

Zhu Guangqian And British Empiricist Tradition And His Revisions Over Benedetto Croce, Lang Jin

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The British empiricist tradition is very important in Zhu Guangqian's aesthetics, which has become both the background for him to accept and the resource to revise Benedetto Croce. The study of the British associationist school on how associations worked helped to bypass the distinction made by formalistic aesthetics between aesthetic appreciation, science and morality, which also informed Zhu Guangqian's reflection over the relationship between literature and morality and led to Zhu's revision of the formalist aesthetics' overemphasis on the aesthetic autonomy. By integrating the British empiricist tradition with the spirit of Li and Yue in Chinese Confucian tradition, Zhu Guangqian …

香港短篇小說的精神疾病書寫 (1990-2010), Pui Ting Tsang

Lingnan Theses

自古至今，疾病是文學反覆吟誦的母題。香港文學發展至今，以精神疾病作為敘事對象的作品不勝枚舉。九十年代以後的精神疾病書寫，更呈現一種眾聲喧嘩（Hetroglossia）的狀態。

疾病作為時代苦悶的象徵，是展示社會面貌及人文精神的重要表述符號， 因而在文學的主題表現上有舉足輕重的地位。精神疾病的敘事更以心靈為文本，逼視個人或社會的病態。審視兩岸三地文學發展的脈絡，在現代主義的熱潮薰陶，及社會動盪的政局與經濟發展下，精神疾病書寫的文學形式便應運而生。作家為精神疾病披上藝術的外衣，形塑扭曲的人文及都市的多維面貌，為小說提供種種歧義的解讀，增加作品闡釋的空間與美學價值。可惜到目前為止， 香港文學對精神疾病敘事的研究並不足夠。

因此，本論文以1990-2010 年間發表及出版，並以精神疾病為敘事主題的香港短篇小說作為研究對象， 結合精神病學的醫學研究成果及敘事學 （Narratology）的相關論述，以精神疾病的敘事作用作為研究框架，從「個人」 和「社會」兩個層面為切入點，分析精神疾病之於文學主題的敘事作用。最後， 探討作家如何透過（集體）書寫精神疾病，反映出香港九十年代至今的時代性， 及形塑出香港都市支離破碎、浮動而不穩定的形象，從而肯定精神疾病書寫對於香港文學的價值。

Rethinking Female Voice And The Ideology Of Sound: A Study Of Stanley Kwan's Film Center Stage (1992), Li Guo

Languages, Philosophy, and Communication Studies Faculty Publications

The article presents criticism on the film "Ruan Lingyu" ("Center Stage"), focusing on director Stanley Kwan's depiction of the female voice in terms of a feminist analysis of the body and voice of Ruan Lingyu, the silent film actress whose life is the focus of the film. Kwan's use of sound editing is highlighted, and special attention is paid to actress Maggie Cheung's portrayal of Ruan. Other topics include Ruan's suicide and China's transition to sound motion pictures.

文苑 (重刊號第12期), 第十六屆嶺南大學學生會中文系系會 (玥弦牽)

文苑

矛盾

Manifestations Of Tibetan Buddhism In Pudacuo National Park And Its Effectiveness As An Environmental Education Tool, Ellen Martin

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Pudacuo National Park in Shangri-la, Yunnan is mainland China’s first national park and comprehensive conservation and eco-tourism attempt. The Nature Conservancy worked with Yunnan provincial government to establish park guidelines and advocate for certain conservation measures. One of the important guidelines that The Nature Conservancy included was local cultural preservation. A primary goal of this experiment in US-modeled national parks is to ensure the longevity of traditional values and beliefs in the parkland area. Pudacuo National Park is not only attempting to conserve the local Tibetan Buddhist tradition but also is attempting to capitalize on the uniqueness of the experience …

Cultural Signification And Literary Signification: With A Tentative Solution To Hillis Miller's Paradox Of Literary Identification Mode, Yang Liu

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Signification theory constitutes a theoretical foundation of cultural studies as it is built on in-depth explorations of Saussure's language theory. Signification implies the requirement of decoding. Cultural signification is realized when the signified in first level symbolic system is hollowed out and filled in by the second level symbolic system, and it then exhibits as a mythological path to bourgeois ideology. Signification informs the implications of literary works and makes them intelligible from the perspective of semiotics. Along this line of delineation, we may find a possible solution to Hillis Miller’s paradox of literary identification mode between innocent reading and …

Fundamental Issues About Aesthetics Study Of Chinese Myth In The Past 100 Years, Huaiyi Wang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

In the past 100 years, aesthetic studies into Chinese mythology are done in four main areas. The first approaches from the perspective of the origin of myth and investigates its nature in relation with imagination, with Wang Guowei and Lu Xun as the representatives. The second examines the relation between mythic thinking and aesthetic thinking, and this has been the focal area of research and proves to be the most fruitful. The third area is a much explored field, which concerns the relationship between Chinese myth and the aesthetic consciousness and aesthetic categorization. The fourth area of reserach focuses on …

Literature As A Passage Of Life: An Overview Of Deleuze-Guattari's Literary Critical Thought, Jing Yin

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

This paper attempts to summarize Deleuze-Guattari's literary critical thought with their claim that literature is "the passage of Life within language which constitutes Ideas." The paper first explicates Deleuze-Guattari's concept of "Life," pointing out that it refers not to concrete or abstract individual life, but to an impersonal and nonorganic power that is proper to the flow of matter-energy and can produce and create differences. The power carries out ceaseless and endless production of desire and various becomings on the plane of immanence. The paper points out that traditional Western philosophy uses binary oppositions to organize the plane of immanence …

A Study Of The Composition OfThe Journey To The West From The Perspective Of Western Literary Theory, Hongbo Zhu

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The study of the composition process of The Journey to the West has come to a plight. On the one hand, the established periodization of the composition has been challenged; on the other hand, the new historical resources are not accepted. As a result, the canonization mechanism of The Journey has not been clearly defined. This paper tries to introduce into the study of The Journey contemporary Western literary theory and takes it as a necessary selection. The concepts of intertextuality and collage may be used to examine the internal compositional mechanism of The Journey from the idea and method …

Confronting The Challenge Of Cultural Studies: The Future Of Comparative Literature, Ning Wang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

As we all know, cultural studies is characterized by its opposition to (elite) literary studies not only because it points to popular or non-elite literature which is usually not dealt with by literary scholars or more specifically, comparatists, but also because it severely challenges the discipline of comparative literature. But on the other hand, cultural studies complements literary studies with its significant contribution to the reconstruction of a sort of new comparative literature. What were not touched upon by traditional literary scholars are now studied by cultural studies scholars who are at the same time doing comparative studies. In this …

The Degeneration Of The Space: On Baudrillard's Critique Of Contemporary Architecture And Urban Space, Shuyuan Wan

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Jean Baudrillard not only revealed the loss of truth and meaning, the degeneration of urban space, and the paradox of the space-consumption in what he might term as the Era of Simulation but also established a logic of causation between the overrunning of simulation and the degeneration of the space. In this light, he indulged in his own poetic aesthetics and philosophy of seduction, and hoped to take it as an antidote to re-animate the urban environment and cultural space lost in simulations and codes and to restore aesthetical function back to urban architecture.

The Folklore-Archetypal Criticism Of Feminity: With The Female Image Of Southern Yangtze In Chinese Modern Literature As A Critical Example, Haiying Mao

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The folklore-prototypal criticism of feminity is a native theory on Chinese female literature criticism, originated from feminist prototypal criticism. The paper attempts to analyze the female iamge in Southern Yangtze literature and tries to delineate a trajectory of prototype development from the theme, the figure to the imago in folklore. Under the multiple approaches to modern literature, folklore-prototypal criticism of feminity has also taken on more theoretical significance in three aspects: the emphasis on exploration of universality and totality along with the ecological significance of the inner world development, the emphasis on individuality and particularity along with the prominance of …

Unnatural Narratology And Contemporary Narrative Poetics: An Interview With Professor Brian Richardson, Richardson Brian, Biwu Shang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

This interview centers around the current state of and the possible future directions for the research on narrative and narrative theory in general, and unnatural narrative and unnatural narratology in particular. A definition of the term "unnatural narrative" is followed by a discussion of its relationship with unnatural narratology and other strands of narrative inquiry. The interview has also commented on the problematic distinction between classical narratology and postclassical narratology, before the constraints of contemporary narrative theory are talked about and some possible future directions for this rapid developed discipline are outlined.

Literariness, Anti-Essentialism And Spatial Turn, Wei Wang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Different ways may be applied to the investigation of literariness as a measure in judging literature. The dominant way to understand literariness has been within an essentialist mode, which approaches literature from the perspective of imagery and aesthetic ideology, which has been under attack from the anti-essentialistic approach. Anti-essentialistic approach develops from the monistic to the pluralistic and ultimately to the nonessentialistic. The paper maintains that the investigation of literariness should rid itself of the myth of trans-tempo-spatiality and entrust itself to the interplay between the interrelated factors in the synchronic spatial structure in literature.