Chinese Studies Commons^™

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.

The Visible And The Articulable: Investigating Foucault's Philosophy Of Art Through Paintings, Zhong Zhang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

In The Order of Things, Foucault reveals the fissure between reality (things) and language (words), i.e., the fissure between image and words (language) in Classic period. Foucault’s philosophical thought on planar visual art is conveyed through his interpretation of three paintings. This thought is carried forward in the interpretation of the first two paintings, but in the Edouard Manet's Paintings, Foucault finds another "vision". The vision of fissure between seeing and speaking or between the visible and the articulable not only renders Manet's paintings as one type of creation but more importantly enables Foucault to find the possibility of the …

The Problems Of Aesthetic Study And The Dialectical Reflection In Adornao's Aesthetics, Tao Li

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

This paper aims to be a textual interpretation of Adorno's "Draft Introduction" to his Aesthetic Theory. The paper maintains that Adorno's thoughts about modern Aesthetic will lead us into the problematization of modern aesthetics. Adorno insisted on the essential truth of the study of aesthetics and emphasized on an immanent critique of "second reflection", and thus he tried to revive aesthetic theory by way of dialectical gestation.

Chinese Folk Literature As A Discipline: With A New Interpretation Of Hu Shih's Vernacular Literature, Xiaoling Li

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The paper takes as its departure the three keywords prominent during the disciplinary construction period of Chinese folk literature in the early 20th century, and proceeds to investigate the subject of folk literature study from the perspective of history. On the basis of an analyis of Hu Shih's "Vernacular Literature Movement," the paper tries to locate the discipline of folk literature in literary study, describe the governing idea behind the formation of the discipline, and provide a fresh interpretation of the vernacular language and the vernacular literature. It is hoped that Chinese folk literature as a discipline can be surveyed …

Norms And Nature Appreciation, Robert Stecker

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

In recent writings about environmental aesthetics a variety of proposals have been advanced about relevant norms that constrain appropriate aesthetic appreciation of nature. Some of these norms are cognitive or epistemic. Others are moral. If these proposals are correct, then different kinds of value interact in the realm of environmental aesthetics. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate these claims. Such an evaluation inevitably has two parts. One first has to ask whether the purported norms exist. If they do, one has to assess their bearing on evaluative aesthetic judgments. This paper will argue that there are weak epistemic …

On Du Fu's Reception Of Yu Xin's Poetry And The Implications To Du's Poetic Theory, Yao Zhong

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Among the influences Du Fu had received from The Book of Poetry to Six Dynasties, Yu Xin from Southern and Northern Dynasties enlightened Du Fu the most in his poetry writing. Du Fu evaluated Yu Xin's poetry to be "fresh" and "mature" and his observation became generally accepted among later critics. Du Fu's reception of Yu Xin underwent a complicate internal process, and Yu Xin's stylistic change from "freshness" to "maturity" became fundamental in Du Fu's epitomized poetic development.

On The "Flavour" In Poetry Commentaries In Song Dynasty, Aiping Huang, Xun Sun

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The concept of "flavour" develops into an important category of Chinese ancient poetics, during the process of which poetry commentaries in Song Dynasty played an important role in enriching its connotation. The paper divides "flavour" into two categories in light of its application into genres. In one category, flavour is used to comment on the times and poetry style in general. In another category, it is used to comment on specific texts from four aspects of reason, emotion, context and object, and investigate its connotation. The paper has also explored the aesthetic characteristics of "flavour" from the perspective of its …

On The Rationality And Casual Criticism In Poetry Commentaries In Song Dynasty, Shanshan Xie, Qiaobin Deng

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Casual commentaries and casual criticism are a prevalent mode of literary criticism at the turn from Tang Dynasty to Song Dynasty. Casual criticism developed into poetry commentaries whose contents centered around poem appreciation, and evolved into a mode of literary criticism that was characterized by random writings, with Liuyi Poetry Commentaries as its representative. Poetry commentary places criticism into appreciation, and by emphasizing on historical research on and critical examination of the text, it explores the poetic principles in commenting on dictions and exerts a profound influence on the ancient Chinese literary criticism.

The Modernized Representation Of Chinese Classical Literature In Taiwan Modern Poetry, Sheng Wu

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Many Taiwanese modern poets have made enlightening explorations in their poems through their incorporating Chinese national features to reflect national spirits and traditional cultures. In the modernized representation of classical literature, modern consciousness and techniques are employed to represent historical figures, classical texts and traditional themes. This paper discusses from three perspectives how modernized representation is realized: how historical figures and contemporary characters are brought into the same one space-time; how classical works are extended and recreated to integrate with contemporary texts to form inter-text; how the traditional themes are endowed with modern consciousness or are explored using modern techniques.

The Name And Nature Of The Psychology Of Art: An Exploration Of Interdisciplinary Studies Of Literature Since 1976, Fengjie Liu

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The disciplinary formation of psychology of art in China experienced three phases in terms of its name and nature, and two approaches have emerged with one from the psychological perspective and the other from literary perspective. The psychological perspective takes the relation between psychology and literary art as a psychological phenomenon, while the literary perspective takes it as a literary one. This paper tries to argue for a discipline to study the psychology of literary art and establish a subject boundary of the discipline. It argues that the limits of psychology in literary studies has to be recognized and that …

The Sound Of The Study Of "Literature": A Survey Of Issues Of Sound In Ancient Liteary Texts And Studies On Texts, Yinchi Chen

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Literature develops from the oral to the written, and ancient texts were not only written for silent study reading but also for sound interpretive reading. The paper exemplifies the different aspects of sound in Chinese classical literary texts, with particular attention to Tongcheng School's investigations into the sound issues in Qing Dynasty. The paper proceeds to delineate the possible relations between the sound issues in prose and in verse, and hopes to provide an example to the interplay between genres.

Live Confucian: The Newsletter Of The Confucius Institute Of Pace University September 2012, Confucius Institute Pace University

Live Confucian

A newsletter of the Confucius Institute, Pace University.

The Confucius Institute at Pace Universi­ty is dedicated to providing Chinese lan­guage and cultural education, resources,and services to meet the needs of people from all backgrounds.

Is China A Responsible Developing Country? Climate Change Diplomacy And National Image Building, Sanna Kopra

Global Asia Journal

A state’s image is an important resource for wielding national power in global politics. Its prestige and reputation often influence the interactions with other states. As an emerging superpower, China is under pressure to shoulder more responsibility for tackling global climate change. The West has criticized China as a “climate criminal” that threatens global climate stability. In response, the Chinese government implemented a series of comprehensive programs to improve its image abroad. This paper examines China’s national image building in the realm of international climate politics. It draws on the official rhetoric and policy statements to discuss the innovative strategies …

From "God From Lofty Mountains" To "God From Shaman Dance": Natural Aesthetics In Pre-Qin Dynasty, Shilun Zhong

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Natural aesthetics in the pre-Qin period (before 221-207 B.C.) is a blend of elements from religion, ethic, art and witchcraft. The idea of "God from lofty mountains" reflects the worship of nature underlined by natural moral law. Human beings feel the overpowering awe of lofty mountains, and the feeling of awe transforms into the sublimity of ethics and morality in the society. "God from lofty mountains" represents people‘s desire and belief in the West Zhou period in their efforts to discover the rules of social development in the nature, but human's value is obscured in the combination between the essence …

Three Arguments Relating The Study Of Ci-Poetry, Zhongyi Xia

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Chinese ci-poetry as a different poetic form from shi-poetry has its distinctive aesthetic characteristics and a unique pattern of stylistic innovation. A full understanding of this claim is essential to a historical analysis and evaluation of the theorectical commentaries on ci-poetry from the ancient famous scholars. The famous claim that ci-poetry is but shi-poetry set to music can be investigated from the perspective of "verifying the music from the lyrics," and its legitimacy lies on the one hand in the aesthetic sentiments and the life-disposition complexity in lyrics-music complex and on the other hand in various anthologies, commentaries, reading notes …

"Poetry-Rituals-Happiness" In Chinese Thought And Aesthetics As A Discipline, Chengwan Lao, Meng Qi

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Aesthetics as a discipline was constructed under the system of Western philosophy,and then introduced into Chinese intellectual field. In terms of conceptualization of ideas,perhpas the concept of "happiness (le)" can be understood as equivalent to the Western concept of aesthetics. Aesthetics as a discinple in opposition to logic was established by Baumgarten,but its origin was rooted in Plato's concept of "beauty" and Aristotle's "form" in the four-cause elements. Western culture has a materialistic pursuit which emphasizes the essense of the objects as the expression of intuition of existence, and this pursuit in the form of rigorous examination of objects shows …

Encountering The World, Brown Marshall, Yin Bai

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

David Damrosch's writings on world literature envision readers "making themselves at home abroad." This essay argues against his Thoreauvian optimism, given a world that is too large to grasp or to become a home. World literature cannot be naturalized. Drawing on examples from Leibniz, Achebe, Walcott, and Petrarch, the essay proposes that world literature is best identified in terms not of the value of authors and works, nor of the situations portrayed through the characters and plots, but of the nature of the readerly experience. It examines the style of representation in world literature, which Brian Lennon's book In Babel's …

Raymond Williams And His Contrapuntal Reading Of Literary Representations, Weihua He

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

As two of the most fundamental spaces for inhabitation, "the country" and "the city", together with the life dramas with them as the background, are central themes of literary representation. Writers tend to celebrate the country because of its association with the peaceful pastoral life; on the other hand, the city, which stands for a secular and depraved way of life, becomes a sinister place in numerous literary works. People have taken these associations in literary representations for granted, forgetting that they are actually ideological constructions. In The Country and the City, Raymond Williams reads such spatial repre-sentations in literary …

Adorno's Aesthetic Reason And The Intellectual Dimension Of Aesthetic Critique: A Contemporary Approach To The Critique Of Enlightenment Rationality, Xia Zhao

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Aesthetic reason is as a key concept in Adorno's aesthetic thinking and belongs to the fundamental category in the aes-thetic modernity tradition. Adorno's idea of aesthetic reason leads to both the undermining and reconstructing of its original conception, and it aims to propose an approach to the redemption of the Enlightenment rationality through unique aesthetic reflection. While initiating a radical project for aesthetic redemption, Adorno's idea reveals the intellectual dimension of aesthetic critique of modernity, which, in today's rethinking of the post-modern discourse and exploration into the revival of Enlightenment spirit, offers vital clues for interpreting certain aesthetic phenomena and …

Globalization And The Culture Of Tourism: A Complex Connectivity From The Postmodern Perspective, Jing Yang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

From the perspective of globalization,the representation of "connectivity" shows in the essence and extension of expanding tourism culture, and it constantly changes in response to the changes in the cultural dimension of globalization. An exploration into the process of connectivity will reveal the role of culture in intricate network of contacts. The ways by which globalization and the culture of tourism connect to culture are different, and both may promote people's national identification and personal cultural accomplishment. The paper hopes to expand the horizon of the cultural dimension of globalization through its topical focus and point out some practical significance …

ShouldCi-Poems Be Included InComplete Tang Poems, Yufeng Xie

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Ideally speaking, the compilation of Complete Tang and Five Dynasties Shi-Poems could have been done in parallel with that of Complete Tang and Five Dynasties Ci-Poems, so that all the rhymed literature could be collected. However, such an endeavor requires an operational distinction between shi-poem and ci-poem. The common understanding to the distinction between them is built on the musical style or yanlue, but due to the scarcity of music data of Tang and Five Dynasties, it is hard to deny subjectivity and random in practice when distinguishing between shi-poems and ci-poems. The result is that very often shi-poems go …

Investigating The Connotations Of The Genre Of Paixie In Ancient Chinese Poetry, Yi Wang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

This paper analyzes and delineates the different definitions of Paixie as a literary genre through examining the critical and creative works (mainly poetry) from ancient Chinese literature. Through tracing the original connotation of Paixie and examining the various definitions from later periods, the paper points out that paixie as a genre not only refers to the entertaining forms such as satires and parodies with high-brow and low-brow styles but also includes miscellaneous writing of varied forms and playful writings such as palindromes or names of herbs. From the works by such famous and refined poets as Du Fu, it can …

Literary Theory Today, Culler Jonathan

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

No abstract provided.

Reappraisal Of The Aesthetic Thoughts Of Giambattista Vico, Liyuan Zhu, Ming Li

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

In Chinese academia, the research into the aesthetics of Giambattista Vico has not been well developed after Zhu Guangqian's inaugural exploration. This paper tries to investigate the following problems. What has restricted the further exploration into Vico's aesthetics? Is it reasonable to regard Vico as a theorist of aesthetics with his own original aesthetic thoughts, while he was generally considered as a historical philosopher and a jurist? Our further probe into Vico's thoughts leads us to the belief that "perception" lies at the foundation of Vico's aesthetics. The discussion of "perception" and "poetic wisdom" is the most important part of …

Aesthetic Analogy Between The Human Being And The Nature FromThe Book Of Poetry And Li Sao ToA New Account Of Tales Of The World, Jun Zhang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Two modes of aesthetic analogy developed in The Book of Poetry and Li Sao are "analogy between human virtues and things" and "analogy between human beings and things." These two modes are similar in their tenors and vehicles, and share the same structure, and they are built on the analogy between the beauty of character and the beauty of nature. The aesthetic thought exhibits an unification between the heaven and the human being. However, the paper argues that the two modes essentially follow two different princiles in aesthetics with different cultural spirits. The analogy betwen virtues and things is a …