Chinese Studies Commons^™

From "Image" To Simulacrum: Derrida's Discussion On Writing, Shubao Dong

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Writing is one of the key words in Derrida's deconstructive philosophy. In his Of Grammatology, Derrida refers to the claims of writing from Plato to Rousseau and down to Saussure, confuting their idea that "writing is the image of speech". However, Derrida, inspired by Saussure's principle of difference that "in language there are only differences," and expounds the relationship between writing and difference, by which he transforms Saussure's static difference into the dynamic difference. Writing plays the game of difference in simulacra, and fills up the simulacrum in the supplemental movement of "image", Writing finally becomes a roaming orphan, which …

Political Or Ethical: Chen Duxiu's Motive For Writing "Towards A Literary Revolution", Xu Xu

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Chen Duxiu's motive for writing "Towards a Literary Revolution" has been widely understood on the political level. This conception is based on its historical consequence and therefore controversial among scholars. To put the article into its original context, a solid correlation can be found between the debate on literary revolution and the slogan of "reforming national characters." Combined with the anti-Confucian revolution back then and the textual performance of the article, it can be argued that, for Chen Duxiu, the concern of ethics was more imperative than that of society or politics. In this view, to reconnect "Towards a Literary …

The In-Betweenness Of Humankind And Thing: A Crisis Of Modernity From The Perspective Of Philosophy Of Technology, Zhengbo Zhang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The harmony between humankind and Thing is the normative basis on which ecological balance and stable social development are maintained. With the development of industrial revolution, information technology, and neurosciences, this due harmony has been disturbed by such crises of modernity as the schism between humankind and Thing, the excessive connection between humankind and Thing, and the bewildered in-betweenness of humankind and Thing. These predicaments may lead to consequences like ecological imbalance, moral bankruptcy, emotional distortion, and even the destruction of human beings. In this regard, it is through returning to the "undifferentiated world," facilitating the mutual exchange between humankind …

The Innovation On Early Modern Language And The Change Of Fiction's Language Style, Xiaojun Liu

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The change of early modern fiction's language style was closely related to the language innovation movement. Under the impetus of the movement of oral-written languages integration and the movement of national language unification, the language style of early modern fiction saw a decline in the influence of classical Chinese language and an increase in vernacular Chinese language. In this process, vernacular Chinese language absorbed the essence of classical Chinese language, received the influence of translated works, and combined the elements of classical and mandarin Chinese languages, thus forming a heteroglossia style. The completion of the change in the style of …

The Paradox Of "Self": New Literature's Ethical Problems Of "Individual Liberation", Jianhua Song

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The new literature relies on the form of "natural person" to pursue the ideals of "self" and "freedom", which indeed promoted the historical progress of Chinese society. However, this type of absolute "self" and "freedom" also directly destabilized the ethical relationship in traditional culture, thus making people's behavior disordered. Once the "self" was placed above society and broke away from the control of social moral norms, the opposition between the "self" and society emerged, and the "self" eventually fell into ideological confusion as it could no longer exist. For new literature, the shift from blind optimism to rational thinking in …

An Analysis Of The Phenomenon Of Titling Fu With Poetry In The Tang Dynasty, Haoyu Tang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Poetry and fu (prosy ode) both flourished during the Tang dynasty, and thus with the mutual infiltration and development of poetry and fu, there was a phenomenon of using poetical lines in the title of fu, which influenced its content and purport. This phenomenon also reflected similarities and differences of poetry and fu in expressions and characteristics, and clearly revealed the trend of confluence of poetry and fu in the development of literary styles during the Tang dynasty. This article lists all the works in The Complete Fu of the Tang Dynasty that used poetry in titles and analyzes their …

On The Experiential Basis Of Beauty, Hongxiang Li

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The concept of beauty has been abused in contemporary popular aesthetics, which attributes the beautiful to the superficial experience of human body and fails to understand the spirituality of true beauty. In contrast to beauty in everyday sense, true beauty exists in ecstasy, a holistic experience integrating body and mind, in which people may feel a transcendental sense of reality. Different from pathological illusion, the ecstatic sense of beauty signifies nature's manifestation in human life and testifies to the intrinsic harmony between humankind and the universe. Through the lens of ecstasy, this article examines true beauty in three dimensions: reflections …

The Artistry In The Historical Storytelling Scripts Of The Song And Yuan Dynasties, Dajun Xu

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The Song dynasty saw the development of telling historical stories in both official functions and folk gatherings, and both occasions reflect the popularization of historical knowledge not only in these occasions but also in the sociocultural environment. Artisan's storytelling performance and popular history books represent two representational forms of the oral and written products, and historical storytelling scripts thus emerged. These scripts are the results of the popularization of historical knowledge, the prosperity of popular historical books, the attitude to and the ability in vernacular Chinese during the Yuan dynasty. In this process, the style of expression of historical storytelling …

The Diversification Of Poetic Preferences In The Light Of The Ranking Of Su Shi And Huang Tingjian In The Late Northern And Early Southern Song Period, Guochao Liu

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

As two prominent representative poets in the Northern Song dynasty, Su Shi and Huang Tingjian set the key of poetry of the Song dynasty. The ranking of Su and Huang against each other has always been contested in poetry criticism of the Song dynasty. The first wave of the contention culminated during the two Song Dynasties, when there appeared tour types of critics, namely, "Huang-esteemers," "Esteemers for both Su and Huang," "Su-esteemers" and "Censurer of both Su and Huang". The appreciation of Su and Huang's poems and the transformation of critical practices during this period reflected the diversification of poetic …

An Exploration Of Literary Ontology From The Perspective Of Friedrich Kittler's Media Theory, Guang Yang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Friedrich Kittler is an important media theorist and a unique critic of media literature. Kittler examines the discourse network constructed by the technical media between 1800s and 1900s, and concludes that "media determine our situation." This conclusion can be understood as a media ontology that emphasizes the materiality and the preexistence of technical media. An analysis of the relationship between Kittler's media theory and Foucault's discourse theory may reveal triple-aspected logic behind the formation of Kittler's media ontology and the logic behind the transition from issues concerning media ontology to issues concerning literature. Through his media ontology, Kittler makes the …

Augmented Reality And The Spatial Turn: The Situational Writing Of Cyber Literature And Its Aesthetic Transformation, Moyong Han

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The situational writing of cyber literature displays three typical modes: the spatial sights, the virtual reality, and the locality narrative. Despite their differences, they all tend to shape and characterize through such elements as position, site, space, and visuality. These tendencies and features distinguish cyber writing from conventional literary writing and lead to changes in literature. Specifically, in terms of the relationship between literature and reality, literature begins to be transformed from imitating reality into augmenting reality. Conventional writing, based on imitation, pursues truth behind its fictive surface, while cyber writing is virtual in nature despite its surface verisimilitude. In …

Can "Contemporaries" Know How To Read?, Rabaté Jean-Michel

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

In order to respond to Kyoo Lee's theses on reading, this essay focuses on obscurity and difficulty, terms often associated with modernism. Moving from a controversy opposing Mallarmé and Proust in the last decade of the 19th century to Lacan's use of a Mallarmean language when he describes how symptoms can be read, that is not by thinking naïvely that we are "poets" but by understanding that we are unconsciously scripted "poems," the essay posits a mediation provided by Ezra Pound when he invents both Comparative Literature and Translation Studies.

From Neutrality To The Other: Levinas On Blanchot, Jiajun Wang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Levinas's and Blanchot's literary theory coalesced while maintained a tension in between. They both tried to break through Heidegger's ontological literary theory, but Levinas used "the other", and Blanchot used "the outside" as the weapons to achieve this goal. In general, Levinas and Blanchot showed us two different and yet connected ethics and literature. The former intended to use ethics to transcend the totality of philosophy, but ultimately found the literary language in the depth of this ethics, which made the ethics become literary; the latter intended to use literature to transcend the identity of philosophy, but ultimately found the …

History, Miscellaneous History And Fiction, Jinfeng Zhou

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Ancient Chinese fiction had a very close relationship with history. The development of historiography led to the separation of history books. Miscellaneous history and fiction were the products of this process, hence the idea of "the remaining of history". From history to miscellaneous history and to fiction, historicity gradually declined and fictionality increased, in which miscellaneous history became transitional between history to fiction, hence its dual nature. Miscellaneous history had both connection to and difference from fiction. They both had the function of persuasion and supplementing history, but also had many differences in content and style.

Ways Of Seeing: Historicization, Technologization And Chinese Artistic Experience, Tairan Liu

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Marx raised the issue of "the historicization of senses", arguing that the fundamental feature to distinguish humans from animals is that humans can use their techniques to foresee certain types of things in the future which are not given by the nature but are created by humans. However, issues such as the relationships between technology and the body, between technology and labor, and between technology and the ways of human-sensing invite further investigation. Chinese artistic experience enables us to separate "historicization of senses" from "technologization of senses" under new historical conditions, and then we may reflect on the globalization and …

Hanban Teachers’ Culture Shock And Adaptation In The U.S.: A Mixed Method Study, Yufei Guo, Huiwen Li, Hui Pang

Chinese Language Teaching Methodology and Technology

When entering into the United States, Hanban teachers will face a totally different cultural environment. The different culture may lead to culture shock. This research, by employing mixed methods, investigated the culture shock the Hanban teachers in the United States have experienced. By looking at the teachers’ personal characteristics and the happenings to the teachers in the culture shock period, it also identified the main factors that significantly predict the culture shock. In addition, practical ways were suggested to help the teachers cope with cultural shock effectively.

Keywords: Hanban teachers, culture shock, predictive factors, culture adaptation

American K-12 Cfl Teachers’ Expected Competence, Actual Qualifications, And Needs For Professional Training: A Concurrent Mixed-Method Study, Xiongyi Liu, Ying Feng, Shunqin Li, Xiaocong Ding

Chinese Language Teaching Methodology and Technology

In recent years, there has been a growing demand in the global labor market for proficiency in Chinese as a foreign or second language. Yet not much is known regarding how Chinese language education is provided by the U.S. schools in order to meet this demand. The present study investigated the competence that a Chinese teacher is expected to have as well as the qualification that currently in-service K-12 teachers of Chinese are actually possess. In addition, this research explored teaching philosophies, attitudes, pedagogy, challenges and needs for professional training among the Chinese teachers who are currently hired by U.S. …

Developing Effective Exercise Forms In Chinese Newspaper And Periodical Reading Class, Haiyan Liu

Chinese Language Teaching Methodology and Technology

Applying good exercises in extensive reading class is an indispensable measure for Chinese language learners. By employing newspaper and periodical extensive reading course as an example, this paper introduces technology-based reading techniques developed from the teaching practice, including rhythmic spacing, speed-reading, news-telling, and English video translation. Suggestions are also made on teaching resource identification and future research. The aim of this pedagogical report is to help extensive reading teachers learn how to develop systematic teaching methodology.

The Past And Present Of Chinese Language Teaching In Ireland, Caitríona Osborne, Qi Zhang, Yongbin Xia

Chinese Language Teaching Methodology and Technology

China’s booming economy is indeed one of the main reasons for the popularity of learning Chinese as a foreign language (henceforth CFL). With this growing interest in CFL, Ireland is likely to be behind global trends as Chinese is not yet included as a State-examined subject at any level in the Irish schooling system. Chinese language teaching (henceforth CLT) began to develop significantly in formal UK schooling during 2004-2005 (Zhang & Li, 2010), whereas the earliest occurrence of CLT seen in the Irish education system was in 2006-2007 when two Confucius Institutes were set up in Ireland. During this time, …

New Approach To Chinese Writing: An Exploratory Study Of Writing Performance On Social Q&A Online Community, Lin Zhu

Chinese Language Teaching Methodology and Technology

Many studies have investigated how the online community has informed language acquisition and teaching. In the scholarship of Computer-Mediated Communication Theory (CMC), while most of the studies have emphasized second language English writing using the CMC framework, evidence is shown to support CMC in foreign language instruction. However, there is a lack of research on how feedback from native speakers of Chinese influences Chinese learners’ writing in a web environment. In response to the research gap, drawing on sociocultural and CMC, the current exploratory study probes the nature of feedback on Zhihu, the largest Chinese social question-and-answer website, and how …

Challenges Of Employing Voicethread To Enhance U.S. Collegiate Chinese Language Learners’ Oral Proficiency, Guangyan Chen, Junyu Zhang

Chinese Language Teaching Methodology and Technology

The digital age in education inspires Chinese teachers to integrate Web 2.0 technologies into Chinese as a second language (CSL) curricula to enhance teaching effects. However, few studies examine the challenges that teachers face when integrating Web 2.0 technologies to improve student oral proficiency in Chinese. This study aims to investigate students’ perceptions of the effectiveness of the Web 2.0 technology VoiceThread (VT). It examines the challenges of integrating VT to enhance student oral proficiency. The authors conducted two studies with 31 students responding to a questionnaire in Study 1 and 48 students responding to the same questionnaire in Study …

Table Of Contents, Huiwen Li

Chinese Language Teaching Methodology and Technology

Table of Contents for Volume 2, Issue 1 of Chinese Language Teaching Methodology and Technology

Incheon Chinatown: Cultural Heritage Of This Korea's First Chinatown, Wendy W. Tan

Publications and Research

Established around 1884, Incheon Chinatown is Korea’s first Chinatown. While it has been centuries’ old, it does not fall into a normal condition of old fashioned Chinese community. Rather, it has been highly acclaimed for its presentations of tourist attractions and cultural heritage. It has also been unfortunately labelled as a Chinatown without Chinese. The author has a keen interest in Chinatown development around the world, so a personal visit was made to experience how elements of ethnicity are in action in this Chinese community

The Development Of Shamanism And Its Social Functions In The Song Dynasty (960-1279): Taking Folktales In Record Of The Listener As Major Examples, Xiang Wei

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

This thesis examines the development and the social functions of Shamanism in the Song Dynasty (960-1276). The author focuses on different historical religious stories recorded in classics. In this thesis, folktales in Record of the Listener were major examples to illustrate Shamanism in the Song Dynasty. Moreover, this thesis also cites folktales and records from other primary sources. For instance, History of the Song, Qingming Ji, Xu Zi Zhi Tong Jian Chang Bian (A sequel of History as A Mirror) are also important primary sources to research Shamanism in the Song Dynasty. Furthermore, this thesis also focuses on citing views …

Overlapping Scriptworlds: Chinese Literature As A Global Assemblage, Wai-Chew Sim

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article “Overlappinig Scriptworlds: Chinese Literature as a Global Assemblage,” Wai-Chew Sim offers a globalist vision or understanding of Chinese literary studies/Sinophone studies. Deploying the notion of scriptworld (Damrosch), he examines how the Chinese, English, and Malay-language scriptworlds interact in the Southeast Asian context. He traces the rhizomatic connections between Joo Ming Chia’s Exile or Pursuit, a Singapore Sinophone text that explores multiple belongings, and two novels: M. L. Mohamed’s Confrontation (originally published as Batas Langit), and T.H. Kwee’s The Rose of Cikembang (originally published as Bunga Roos dari Cikembang). Tracing the sinophonicity of the latter …

The Disenchantment Of History And The Tragic Consciousness Of Chinese Postmodernity, Alberto Castelli

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Magic Realism brings fantastic events into the frame of the narration. Yet it cannot quite be defined. At the very start of the process of definition, there is a question: Magic Realism is a mode of narration, or rather a post-colonial movement rising sociological issues alternative to the logic of power? The paper parallels and juxtaposes Latin American Magic Realism and the literary experience of Chinese literary Avant-garde in the 80s, similar apocalyptic thematic, but different narrative structures. Relating to the fictional universe of Can Xue and Yu Hua, the aim is to illuminate an exclusive mode to narrate history: …

Promoting Teacher Professional Learning In Tanzanian Schools: Lessons From Chinese School-Based Professional Learning Communities, Mjege Kinyota, Patrick Severine Kavenuke, Rehema J. Mwakabenga,

Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

This paper reports on the history, features, and challenges of School-Based Professional Learning Communities (SBPLCs) in China to elicit lessons for Tanzania towards improving in-service teacher professional development. Based on the Chinese SBPLCs, this review aims to provide some insights to educational planners and teachers in Tanzania on how to establish and maintain effective school-based professional learning. This analysis used 30 journal articles published over the past twelve years (2006-2017) to provide research-based evidence. The findings indicate that Chinese schools have registered significant achievements in SBPLCs by supporting teacher collaborative learning and research in both rural and urban areas. As …

In Search Of China’S First Library: Materials, Housing And Arrangement, Junli Diao

Publications and Research

Historically, the origin of libraries has an intimate association with written records supporting administrative or ritual functions at the palace or temple. This article attempts to discuss the possibility of the existence of China’s first library in the Shang dynasty (c.1570-1045 BCE) during the beginning of the formative period of Chinese civilization. The article analyzes and synthesizes both paleographical and archaeological evidence from the perspective of available materials, houses, and arrangement, which answers the questions of what the books were made of, where they were stored, and how they were arranged. The article ends with a conclusion that there is …

Microreading/Microwriting, Perloff Marjorie

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

This essay, following upon Kyoo Lee's case for "counterreading", argues for what I call "micropoetics": a close reading that takes into account every phoneme, morpheme, and word of a poetic text and reads that text "verbivocovisually", to use James Joyce's term. I take as my model Marcel Duchamp's concept of the infrathin — the smallest possible distinction, whether temporal or spatial, between A and B. Similarity and analogy, I argue, have been overstressed and produced the problematic political discourse of the present with its clichés and vapid generalizations. Infrathin reading, on the other hand, establishes difference and the uniqueness of …

A Close-Up: On U, The Reader Inoutside, Lee Kyoo

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Where, or who, is the "close reader" today in the age of imMEDIAted information overflow? This essay introduces a new figure, the "inoutside reader," focusing on its interstitially interactive ambiguity, its selfie-like sobjectivity (simultaneously subjective and objective). Seen and seeing through the "window," the inoutside reader that often counter-reads as well is called and calling 'you' out there and in here; neither exactly an insider nor definitely an outsider but "openly" invited as one of or those of you (vous) freely generated and liberally generalized as such, "U" in the net-work, this data-point-like transistor-reader, acts like a butterfly on the …