Chinese Studies Commons^™

Engaging Or Not: The Theoretical Divergence Between Roland Barthes And Jean-Paul Sartre, Songlin Jin

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

In What's Literature?, Sartre put forward the literary viewpoint of engagement, suggesting that writers should engage with the social life by writing actively, and express their own positions for social or political issues, so as to protect the freedom of individual existence. Roland Barthes, then a young literary figure, criticized seriously Sartre's viewpoint in Writing Degree Zero, contending that such writing not only was polluted by arbitrary ideology, but also burdened itself with the weight of ethics. In order to liberate literature, Barthes tried his best to propose the writing at degree zero or the neutral writing, and to establish …

The Symptom Of A Journey: A Lacanian-Agambenian Analysis Of Journey To The West, Guanjun Wu

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The influences of Journey to the West (JTTW) , one of the greatest classical Chinese novels, in contemporary China are still magnificent. This is sufficiently reflected in the domains of both (high) academic studies and (low) popular culture. Employing Lacanian psychoanalysis and Agambenian political analysis as the main methodological approach, this paper aims at shedding light on the studies of JTTW a novel, interdisciplinary light by concentrating on analyzing symptomatic-political excesses of JTTW's narrative structure. By doing that, the "anomalies" embedded in the novel's narrative structure would receive new interpretative explanations. The analysis powerfully shows that the "unreal" (mythical) world …

"Cultivating Our Own Garden": How Does Art Face The Imperfect World?, Yun Fan

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The term "utopia" as semiotic discourse pays a crucial role in contemporary culture and art practices. Since the "play" theory raised by Schiller, art has been perceived as a vehicle to escape the reality and a weapon to resist it. Subversion becomes the major form of Art's utopia, especially in contemporary culture: artists try to offset the rotten world with innocent artistic imagination. Utopian alienation or subversion is not the only way that artworks adopt to solve the problem of the imperfect world. By confronting the imperfect reality, art can help us to mature into personhood without being cynical and …

A Research On One Hundred Years Of Cross-Cultural Interpretation To A Dream Of Red Mansions, Xiaohong Yu

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

In a century of redology, the studies of A Dream of Red Mansions of Cross-cultural Interpretation mainly focus on four dimensions: elucidation, parallel study, translation, and spreading abroad. The adaptation and performance abroad of A Dream of Red Mansions are literary interpretations and artistic variations of the theme of the novel in a foreign cultural context. The crosscultural interpretation and research on the novel among various kinds of cultural contexts is a crucial part of comparative literature.

A Study On The Realm And Spirit Of Drunkenness In Ancient Chinese Aesthetics, Yulong Tan

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The idea of drunkenness originated in the pre-Qin period and developed in the Qin and Han dynasties. After that, drunkenness was gradually transformed into an aesthetic standard of Gongfu and noumenon. Meanwhile, it consisted of life aesthetics and art aesthetics. The drunkenness of life aesthetics not only helped individuals surpass fame and fortune, but brought them into a realm of absolute equality to communicate with the ontological realm. The art aesthetics aspect of drunkenness made one disinterested so as to create art naturally. Besides, it let individuals break the bondage of skills and brought them to the realm of unity …

Negation Of Life: Reassessing Schopenhauer's Influence On Early Nietzsche's Metaphysics Of Art, Dong Lü

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

This article aims to reveal the great influence of Schopenhauer's aesthetic thought on early Nietzsche's metaphysics of art. Firstly, in terms of typology of art, early Nietzsche uses the framework of the Apollonian art/Dionysian art for the binary division of artistic types. Such binary division is the result of direct appropriation of Schopenhauer's artistic dichotomy. The general art which is the facsimile of the idea changes into Apollonian art, and music which is the facsimile of the will changes into Dionysian art. Secondly, in terms of the theory of aesthetic experience, early Nietzsche's concept of tragedy is composed of the …

Poetics Of Gesture: Agamben's Biopolitical Criticism, Yunbo Zhi

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

This article explores the gestural criticism in Agamben's works and elucidates why it belongs to the biopolitical criticism of politics or ethics. This article has three sections. First, it discusses the dimensions of gesture, gag, emptiness, and pure medium, and then points out that gestural criticism's revolutionary significance in terms of suspending the critical tradition and resetting a new boundary for criticism. Second, it illuminates that gesture is also a key critical concept of Benjamin's, and then discusses the meaning and value of interruption in gesture. Third, this article illustrates that the theory of gesture belongs to biopolitical criticism. This …

Semiotic Differance And The Re-Disappearance Of Image In Ming Landscape Painting, Duan Lian

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

In the Ming dynasty, the mainstream in the development of Chinese landscape painting experienced a change from exploring the Tao in the external world to exploring it in the artist's inner world. This is a change "from the outside in." This essay aims to make a point that the Ming mainstream is a repetition of the previous dynasties' mainstream in the development of landscape painting throughout Chinese art history, which is particularly signified by the re-disappearance of human figures in late Ming landscape painting. Studying this issue from the Derridean perspective of 'differance," this essay examines how the signification process …

Symmetries In The Semiosphere: A Typology, Leone Massimo

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The article points out that the current expansion of the semiotic focus from signs and texts to whole cultures needs the development of a coherent method. It therefore proposes to establish the method through an application of the topological theory of fractals to the analysis of different kinds of symmetries in the semiosphere. Having defined fractals as resemblance between two topological structures, the article first dwells on what "resemblance" means in the comparison of both visual and conceptual patterns; it then proposes a typology of fractal similarities, based on the topological operations of rotation, translation, and reflection. Examples of each …

The Affect Theory Of Tao With "Wuhua" From An Animal Perspective, Suqin Hu

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

This article explores the affective, bodily and linguistic aspects of Tao's lyricism in the pre-Qin period from the perspective of human-animal relationship. Based on the human-animal affective bonds in wuhua, this article first proposes that the animal effects emotional changes in human beings in the light of Deleuze and Guattari's "becoming-animal" and the affect theory, which can also be firmly demonstrated by the "qi" and "qi-qing" cosmology in the Pre-Qin period. Then it argues that the human-animal bond of "wuhua" is embodied and performative, thus forming affective auras between the bodies. Viewed linguistically, the special position of the animal at …

The Commercial Press And The Modern Novels In The Literary Field Change: A Study Of The Ten-Volume "Novel Series", Juan Wen

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The "Novel Series" was one of the well-known brands of the Commercial Press. It was published between 1903-1908 and consisted of a hundred novels. It had three characteristics: diversified origins of the novels that were collected from Japan, Europe and America, a wide variety of types, and the inclusion of both classical Chinese and vernacular works. The Commercial Press was a major and influential market-oriented private press. Its selection of the titles in the Series was defined by the times, and subject to the cultural thought of the society and the needs of the post Novel Revolution readers, reflecting the …

The Discourse System Of The Qing Loyalists: A Case Study Of "Zhenyuan Courtiers", Jingru Pan

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The Qing loyalists' self-writing was consigned in their poetry texts, in which we could reevaluate the adherent phenomenon through close reading. The Qing-loyalists had a discourse system, which reflected their position and even ideology. However, as individuals, their self-expression did not obey the rules of the discourse system, which means that we should reinvestigate the adherent phenomenon and their literary works. "Zhenyuan courtiers", which was often alluded by the Qing loyalists, is a good example for the reinvestigation. As a classical allusion, on the one hand, it implied loyalty. On the other hand, it expressed their reminiscent moods as well …

The Priori Grounds For Kant's Judgment Of Taste, Youfeng Hu

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

In The Critique of Judgment, the essential problem to be resolved is that Kant should search for the priori grounds for appreciation and judgment so that they can be contained in the priori philosophy system. It is not a smooth course for Kant to make it. First of all, the fundamental problem that why appreciation and judgment are priori needs to be answered, after which Kant can search priori principles for teleology. Secondly, through the priori deduction of appreciation and judgment, Kant discovers their universal necessity. Kant looks for the priori grounds in the human mind for them, and what …

The Sense Of Beauty As Sensus Communis: The Issue Of Sense Of Beauty In Aesthetic Experiences, Xuguang Liu

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

As a kind of universal capacity for the communication of the state of mind, sensus communis is the premise of aesthetic judgment, a feeling of the free play of the powers of representation, and proportion of cognitive powers. When we use the concept of sensus communis, we intend to deal with the objective necessity of the confluence of the feeling of everyone with that of each. It is the constitutive principle for aesthetic pleasure, and the regulative principle for experience. Kant does not think that sensus communis is a kind of sense, but a kind of idea. However, Marxists believe …

The Tension Of Expression And Ways To Balancing, Yue Jiang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The "crisis of expression" in the humanities and social sciences is caused by the imbalance of expression tension. The phenomenon of expression tension is very common; it is not only found in the same text and different texts of the same object, but also in the process of understanding, expression and re-understanding the same text. The text tends to be successful when the various expression tensions are balanced. When one of the tensions is too strong to keep balance, it either leads to the failure of the expression, or produces texts of aggressive expression. The purpose of analyzing the expression …

Words As Signatures: Agamben And The End Of Poetry, Jiang Lan

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

In Agamben's works, there is a tension between the mysterious fire and the narrative language. The language, which derives from the doxologies in Christology, seals the mystery between the Heaven and the Earth. Rilke's Duino Elegies and H9 lderlin's poetry could be regarded as the production of these signatures. However, if we intend to break the signature, we cannot destroy the words and verses in poetry, as Mallarmé does in Coup de dès, because as soon as we destroy the signature, the mystery behind it will be dispersed. Therefore, Agamben argues that we can transform the fossilized political and linguistic …

Text Mining In Chinese Ancient Attires, Lu Wang

Western Research Forum

Starting from the Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 BCE) when writing system appeared in China, clothing was recorded as symbols to denote social statuses. The hierarchical signification of clothing remained in the following dynasties until the end of imperial China in 1911. The imperial period produced twenty-five official dynastic histories with rich corpuses on the subject of attire, documenting regulations and prohibitions of detailed dress code, a subject being scarcely studied and treated with assumptions today. This research will use text mining tools to identify descriptive words of clothing that reflect Chinese hierarchal ideology from the twenty-five histories. The method is to …

Míng (名) As “Names” Rather Than “Words:” Disabled Bodies Speaking Without Acting In Early Chinese Texts, Jane Geaney

Religious Studies Faculty Publications

My first scholarly article was about the work of A. C. Graham. Unfortunately, I never met him but my copies of his books became so worn from over-use that I had to replace them. My second, now equally worn, copy of Later Mohist Logic, Ethics, and Science opens to a statement that inspires my work:

A consistent nominalism has to extend its principle to the particular utterances of the name itself; I pronounce the sound ‘stone’ over X and afterwards convey that Y is like X by pronouncing a similar sound.

This claim has two important implications. First, in early …

What Drives Consumers In China To Buy Clothing Online? Application Of The Technology Acceptance Model, Zhenqian Wei, Min-Young Lee, Hong Shen

Retailing and Tourism Management Faculty Publications

An enormous number of Internet users have made China a profitable e-commerce marketplace, and clothing is one of the most frequently purchased items. This study explores the predictors of consumers’ motivation to buy clothing online in China by extending the technology acceptance model. Data were collected via an online questionnaire, resulting in 504 returned responses. The results indicate that perceived usefulness has a significant effect on consumers’ intention to buy clothing online; however, no direct relationship between perceived ease of use and buying intention was found. Furthermore, perceived convenience, perceived money saving, and perceived time-saving can explain why consumers perceive …

Succor In Smoke: A Historical And Comparative Analysis Of Incense And Moxibustion As Similar Agents Of Edification And Self-Cultivation, Hannah E. Matulek

Black & Gold

Since its origins in the Shang Dynasty nearly 3,000 years ago, traditional Chinese medicine has undergone many dramatic shifts and adapted to a wide range of cultural, social, religious and foreign pressures. One of the most notable changes is the attribution of the etiology of disease (as well as general poor health and behaviors) from volatile and dissatisfied external forces to manageable internal forces. This allowed for a flourishing of thought in Chinese medicine, for once granting an individual the power to influence his or her own health. Three religions—Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism—were also introduced to China at this time, …