Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Towards A Thick Description Of Maoist Discourse: With Help From Zhao Shuli, Vukovich Daniel

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

With a few exceptions much of the knowledge of modern China produced in the world either ignores or demonizes the Mao era. On the cultural front things are not much better, whether we are speaking of the "Seventeen-year's Literature" or the culture of the 1960s and 1970s. The negation of the Mao or radical era is, in short, a crucial part of contemporary Sinological-orientalism. There is however a recovery and reorientation project underway that seeks to restore the complexity of the Mao decades and its pursuit of an alternative, agrarian, and socialist modernity. As part of this project I offer …

The Concept Of Subjectivity And The Body Image In Ancient Greek Aesthetics, Xiaohua Wang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

In the history of western aesthetics, the concept of subjectivity determines the construction of body image. As the concept of subjectivity varies, the body is accordingly represented as subject, object or subject-object. Since the generalized primitive schema of body was discarded, the construction of body image in Greek aesthetics developed in two directions, one being the understanding of body as a pure object, and the other being the understanding of body as taking the double role of subject and object. The former was represented by Socrates, Plato, Epictetus and Plotinus, while the latter was represented by Democritus, Aristotle, Epicurus and …

Cinema As Politics: On Rancière's Philosophy Of Film, Xinghua Lu

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The paper surveys the recent development of Rancière's philosophy of film from the relation between cinema and politics. The paper delineates that movie-making has taken over literary realism and it had become or is becoming or will become a communist machine to negotiate with the new sensibility of human community that is to come. Movie-making actualizes the global redistribution of the new sensibility through images which configure a space of both the past and the present, and it brings the human into a brand new form of life through a new aesthetic politics.

Investigating Into The Naming Of "Expository Preface" As A Form Of Classical Chinese Generic Criticism, Chengxue Wu

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Some ancient literary anthologies in China usually carry in the contents or before the main body of a volume a preface that introduces the generic evolution, and there has no commonly agreed name for this particular form of writing. The paper proposes that the name of "expository preface (xuti序题)" should be applied to it so that the research into Chinese literary genre could be conducted in a more systematic and self-conscious way. "Expository preface" is a unique and important genre of criticism in ancient Chinese literary history, and it gestates in Han Dynasty, takes its form in Jin Dynasty, and …

On The Formation Of Appreciative Criticism In Ancient China, Chunqing Li

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Appreciative criticism is a form of practical criticism from the perspective of appreciative judgment, and a literary criticism activity on the basis of aesthetic taste and emotional experience. As a form of literary criticism, it emerged in West Han Dynasty and matured in East Han Dynasty in China, with Liu Xiang, Yang Xiong and Liu Xin being three important figures in the developmental process. Appreciative criticism was formed in the socio-historical context in which the change of taste on the part of imperial officialdom and scholar-officials was a key factor. The paper argues that an examination of the historical formation …

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 …

Vocation: What Does It Mean To Be Called Or Led Into A Profession, Career, Or Life Project?, Jeff Rasley

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Article for UChicago Alumni News about alumni programming held in Fall 2012.

Eula Mae Hodge

African American Funeral Programs

No abstract provided.

Luses "Pete" A. Bulger

African American Funeral Programs

No abstract provided.

Are Rage Comics Really Comics?, Frank Bramlett

English Faculty Publications

A couple of years ago, some of my undergraduate students and I were talking about comics, and one of them mentioned rage comics. I hadn’t heard of that before, so I was grateful to learn about them. In the interest of full disclosure, I am not a Redditor, and I don’t ever spend time on Reddit. But in August 2012, when I finally upgraded to a smart phone from my previous dumb phone, I downloaded the Rage Comics app. Every now and again, when I’m on the bus headed to work, I scroll through some of these comics.

Most of …

Thanksgiving, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

As with all American traditions, if it happened once or twice it is one. Therefore I present my traditional Thanksgiving piece. The History of Thanksgiving and of Football both go back into the Middle Ages, and so it may not be so strange that the two would become intertwined in modern America.

November 21, 2012: Devoney Looser Visiting Lecture, Thurs., 11/29, Department Of English

Gleanings: Department of English Blog Archive

No abstract provided.

The Edition, 21st Of November, 2012, Vol. 2, No. 5, 2012, Dit News Society

Student Publications

No abstract provided.

Pre-Imposition Vs. In Situ Negotiation Of Group And Individual Identities: Spanish And English In Us Service Encounters, Laura Callahan

Modern Languages & Literature

This paper examines the supposed opposition between essentialist or positivist approaches to identity—which categorize group and individual members by a priori properties of sex, race, ethnicity, and native speakerhood—and constructionism, which views such properties as relational and negotiable. Even when categories such as sex, race, ethnicity, and native speakerhood are considered to have been imposed a priori, there nonetheless persists a general recognition that these are at least to some extent social constructs—if not the categories themselves, the ideas we have about them. Using data from previous empirical work in Spanish and English code-choice in US service encounters, this paper …

Haunting The Imagination: The Haunted House As A Figure Of Dark Space In American Culture, Amanda Bingham Solomon

Theses and Dissertations

In contemporary America the haunted house appears regularly as a figure in literature, film, and tourism. The increasing popularity of the haunted house is in direct correlation with the disintegration of the home as a refuge from the harsh elements of the world. The mass media populates society with dark images and subjects, portraying America as a dark place to live. Americans create fictional narratives of terror and violence as a means of coping with their own modern horrors. Their horrors are psychologically displaced within these narratives. The haunted house is therefore a manifestation of contemporary anxieties surrounding the dissolution …

The Hanford Advisory Board: A Case Study In Democracy, Technology, And Representation, Alexander Sager, Alex Zakaras

Philosophy Faculty Publications and Presentations

Highly technical policy decisions present daunting challenges for democracy. In order to hold public officials accountable, citizens must be able to see how policy decisions stand to affect their interests. If they are unable to do so, they can find themselves exposed to bureaucratic domination through the discretionary power of bureaucrats, scientists, or policy experts. One of the major tasks of empirically informed democratic theory is to analyze and evaluate practices and institutions that use public participation to try to render highly technical public decision-making more accountable to the public, and therefore more legitimate. This paper presents a case study …

Convocation, Ben Serna-Grey, Michaela Linderman, Barry Hiroshi Anthony Abarquez, Demytro Nehrych, Tabitha Mackin, Travis Bernau, Cheyna Alexander, Elizabeth Bedrosian, Austin Brewer, Noe Otani, Brock Norred, Amber Winn

Convocations

Program listing performers and works performed

Buckner, Simon Bolivar, 1823-1914 (Sc 61), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "additional files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 61. Manuscript poem entitled “The Censer Bowl” written by Simon Bolivar Buckner.

Taylor, Miles Anderson, 1843-1916 (Sc 62), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "additional files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 62. Union Army discharge, 1865, and 1884 certificate for restoration and increase in pension issued to Miles A. Taylor, Caneyville, Kentucky.

How To Be Happy: An Interview With Kevin Corcoran, Kevin Corcoran, Evan Rosa

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

No abstract provided.

Junior Recital, Manny Gamazo, Stephen Anongthep, Halsey Harkins, Nick Schmitt, René Hagedorn, Brian Murphy

Junior Recitals

List of performers and performances.

Cseas Weekly Bulletin (November 19, 2012), Center For Southeast Asian Studies

CSEAS Bulletin

No abstract provided.

Sodeman, Lowell Frazier, 1914-2003, & Mary Elizabeth (Ferguson) Sodeman (Sc 2628), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2628. Letter of Lowell F. Sodeman, pastor of Shepherdsville Baptist Church, Shepherdsville, Kentucky, and his wife Mary, to Roy and Ruth Baucom, Raleigh, North Carolina. They reminisce about their previous fellowship at Mt. Moriah Baptist Church and relate news of their young daughter, Betty Albert, and of Mary’s high school teaching. Lowell also mentions his seminary studies.

Student Recital: Barron Maskew, Tuba, Barron Maskew, Bobbie Kesler-Corleto

Student Recitals

No abstract provided.