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呂祖謙《東萊博議》研究, Shuai Pu

Lingnan Theses (MPhil & PhD)

伴隨對南宋理學問題的深入發掘研究，理學名家呂祖謙的著作日益得到學界關注。圍繞《古文關鍵》、《宋文鑑》、《呂氏家塾讀詩記》、《近思錄》等作品展開的研究日漸豐富，前輩學人多聚焦於呂氏思想中“以廣大為心”的顯著包容性，探討其在“不名一師、不私一說”家學風氣的影響下從容悠遊於文、史、經、理之間，兼收並蓄、博採眾長，藉“以踐履為實”的實踐追求構建自身豐贍詳實的學術思想體系，並希冀由此尋求社會現實問題的解決之道。其中典型代表當屬呂祖謙在史論方面的嘗試與努力，代表作則首推其早年間為指導科舉而作的《東萊博議》一書。

表面上看《東萊博議》的價值僅限於指導科舉策問，但推敲文本內容，可見其本質上是涵蓋多方面思考的史論作品，在指導科舉的外殼下兼具文學、史學、經學、理學研究意義，顯現出呂氏史論的廣泛包容性。更重要的是《東萊博議》成書日早，文本中多見呂祖謙初涉仕途尚未磨滅的理想色彩，相較其他著作更能體現其早期思想狀態，故而研究《東萊博議》有助於理解呂氏思想體系逐步走向成熟的軌跡脈絡。

正基於此，論文選擇以《東萊博議》史論內容作為研究對象。全文計由八章構成，首章為緒論部分，介紹選題緣由及先期準備；第二章以文本析讀為《東萊博議》定性，明確該書史論性質；第三章回溯史論發展情況還原《東萊博議》的歷史定位，解讀呂祖謙的史論觀；第四章梳理《東萊博議》史論內容，圍繞為政經驗總結與理學概念闡發分析呂氏史論要點；五、六兩章聚焦於《東萊博議》史論內容的思想理據，從文、史、經、理等多方面入手探討呂氏學術認知與思考興寄；第七章依託實例剖析史論文體的先天缺陷，闡發評論的同時觀照呂祖謙《東萊博議》史論的後世影響；尾章歸納得出最終結論，依據現有思考方向展望研究前景，完成論文預設研究目標。

The Constructing Of “Chinese-Ness”: The Culinary Identity Of Chinese Restaurants In Gettysburg, Pa., Lureann A. Semple

Student Publications

General Tso’s Chicken. Egg Rolls. Fried Rice. Fortune Cookies. Since the creation of Chop Suey in 1849, Chinese restaurants have not only displayed one of the most fascinating ethnic cuisines in the US but also become a commonly recognizable cultural symbol for Chinese-ness in the American “melting pot." Then what kind of “Chinese-ness” is presented and how is it constructed by these restaurants? Does its Otherness prevent it from fitting into mainstream American society or does its Americanization make this identity less ‘authentic’? By taking the Chinese restaurants in Gettysburg, PA, as a case study, this research studies the construction …

On The Four Forms Of Contemporary Cultural Criticism, Minghua Xiao

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

In the last 30 years, cultural criticism emerged in studies of literature and art thanks to changes in social and cultural context. Some scholars are appealed to interpretative criticism as a result of epistemological interest in the rising popular culture. Some are stimulated to practice cultural criticism by the anxiety about the change of intellectual identity. Some are dedicated to cultural criticism in order to break through disciplinary restraints or to fulfil intellectuals’ role of responding to public concerns. These forms of cultural criticism can be respectively dubbed as “cultural criticism as popular literary criticism,” “cultural criticism as cultural research,” …

On The Tongcheng School’S Preposition Of “Both Poetry And Prose Following One Principle”, Wuzheng Pan

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

In the Ming and Qing dynasties, literary theories tended to consider poetry and prose as following one principle of composition. The Tongcheng School in the Qing Dynasty emphasized on differentiating genres and opposed the blending of elements of other genres into the ancient-style prose, but this school excelled at both poetry and prose writing, and their proposition of “both poetry and prose following one principle” became a consensus. While the Gong’an School and Yuan Mei’s xingling (spirituality) poetics exploited the Confucian poetics to promote the writing of private life and personal sentiments, the Tongcheng School advocated the virtues of the …

Pre-Qin Concepts Of “Image” And Aesthetic Imagism In Chinese Poetry, Yiming Huang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Chinese culture and Chinese way of thinking share the characteristic of imagistic correlation, which may be termed as “image-oriented thinking” or “imagistic thinking”. This characteristic is related to many concepts concerning images such as “regarding objects for images” and “watching for image through divination” in The Book of Changes, “no shape in the grand image” in Laozi, and “intangibility of images” by Zhuangzi. A delineation and analytical examination of the concepts concerning image in the pre-Qin literature may illuminate our understanding of how the concepts of image influenced the direct representation of images in the poetry, and the prioritization of …

Reexamining Prototype Theory From The Perspective Of Eleanor Rosch’S New Conception Of Categorization, Huibin He

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Classic categorizations, such as “human beings are animals with two feet,” have obvious defections, as they are too limited to cover the wide range of instances or not rich enough to fully represent the characteristics of the type of beings. The literary prototype theory based on the classic categorization, which regards prototypes as combinations of universal properties and specific particularities, is essentialist and incapable of exploring the true value of prototypes. It is discovered by Eleanor Rosch and other scholars that the abstract attributes are not the criteria for classification of types in everyday life; rather, the most typical prototypes …

Revisiting The Relationship Between Xiqu Illustrations And Stage Performance In The Ming Dynasty, Hao Zhu

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Since the 1990s, the relationship between xiqu illustration and stage performance in the Ming dynasty has attracted increased scholarly attention. The conclusions, “performing in accordance with pictures” and “drawing in accordance with performances”, have almost become a self-evident consensus in the history of ancient Chinese printmaking. However, if we re-examine this issue from an interdisciplinary perspective of art history and theatre history, we will find that it is a pseudo-proposition raised to meet specific standards. Xiqu actors did not “perform in accordance pictures”, which was booksellers’ advertising strategy. On the other hand, the problem of “drawing in accordance with performances” …

Robert T. Tally Jr.’S Spatial Literary Studies, Ying Fang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The “Spatial Turn” in humanities and social sciences has given rise to “spatial literary studies” in the field of literature. Robert T. Tally Jr., an American scholar, has been playing a leading role in promoting spatial literary studies in the United States and around the world. Over the course of about 20 years’ work in this area, Tally has built up a theoretical system consisting of such concepts as topophrenia, literary cartography, literary geography, geocriticism, and cartography, which correspond to the framework of “being-writing-text-criticism-theorizing”. He has also carried out a profound theoretical exploration with much originality about literary mapping, spatial …

Semiotic Analysis Of “Repulsion” And Its Social And Aesthetic Functions, Guanghui Tan

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Repulsion is not a pure negative emotion. With repulsion, people can tell cleanness from dirtiness, beauty from ugliness, and good from evil. Central to repulsion is the denial of the existence of the other. Repulsion can be divided into physical, material, emotional, and symbolic loathness. Repulsion may be combined with other emotions to form new feelings such as nausea, contempt, pessimism, and arrogance or destructive desire. Most moral norms in human history are constructed through cultivation of people’s repulsion or sense of disgust. In the first place, people construct taboos by defining dirtiness, establish morality through taboos, and stabilize moral …

Self-Understanding Before The Text: Paul Ricoeur's Conceptualization Of The Textual Meaning, Fei Wu

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Paul Ricoeur rejects the Structuralist view of language as a closed system of symbols, and maintains, from the perspective of semantics, that language inherently possesses a dynamic structure of signification. This signification structure implies the discourse, in linguistic domain, is realized as an event and understood as meaning. But meaning is not wholly subjective, as it is substantialized in linguistic forms during the process of externalization, which to a certain degree enables the comprehensibility of human experience. The act of externalization culminates in literary works. With the cancellation of the realistic context, literary texts are allowed the capacity to refer …

Speculative Aesthetics And Subject-Object Relation: Michelangelo Antonioni And Samuel Beckett As Examples, Chang Chen

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Speculative realism explores the substance of objects existing outside of humans’ subjective frame of thought. Under its radiation, Western aesthetics in the last five years has developed a new trend of speculative aesthetics composed of various branches, stimulating a shift in existing art paradigms. However, inside this trend, two camps of aesthetic discussions, with speculative materialism and object-oriented ontology as their respective starting points, are in great division. This article attempts to work through and clarify the tension as well as interaction among the various branches of speculative aesthetics, by mainly focusing on how speculative aesthetics talks about art outside …

Spatial Rhetoric And The Visual Generation Of Cultural Memory: A Rhetorical Investigation Of The National Museum Of China, Wei Zhang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Derived from visual rhetoric, the rhetorical of space depends on the physical development of visual rhetoric, the modern generation of visual context and the establishment of space as a mechanism for the production of its meaning. The rhetorical discourse in public cultural space not only has an impact on individual's aesthetic experience, but also regulates the generative logic of cultural memory and cultural identification. The production of spatial rhetoric in the National Museum of China effectively promotes the rhetorical practice of the visually "persuasive" discourse through the spatial layout and structural design of the architecture, the aesthetic application of lights …

A La Recherche Du Temps Perdu: Enlightenment On "Hatred" And "Love", Xiaolei Guo

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Marcel Proust's long narrative A la Recherche du Temps Perdu reveals that the inevitable form of existence of the temporal ego, “I”, is alienation, with desire as its psychological expression and "hating the neighbor" as its ethical expression. But Proust also suggests an extra-temporal ego, the “true I.” The narratives of the "true I" and "I" are isomorphic to Sartre's "pre/non-reflective consciousness" and "reflective consciousness." The temporal ego is fictional and the ego is polyphonic. This means that, although "hatred" is the inevitable ethical impulse of the "I" towards the world, "non-hatred" is also a realistic and existential possibility. Lacan …

A Synopsis Of The Symposium Of “Literature And Images” And The Books Launch Of A History Of Literature-Image Relations In China, Wenbo Wang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

No abstract provided.

A Study Of The Concept Of “Cyborg”, Guodong Li

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

“Cyborg” has gradually become a popular term in academic research and popular culture since the 1960s, but its connotation is often ambiguous. From the perspective of its conceptual genealogy, the term “cyborg” invented by Manfred E. Clynes and Nathan S. Kline is based on the image of the mechanized man, but the definition of “cyborg”—“cybernetic organism”— covers the idea of pure machine. Interpreting “cyborg” from the perspective of postmodern philosophy, Donna J. Haraway explicates it as an ontological metaphor and a political myth of irony, producing an intellectual discourse about cyborg that separates the concept from what it originally signifies. …

An Exploration Into The “Essence Of Things” In The Poetics Of The Jin And Song Dynasties, Danjun Cai

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The discovery and representation of the sound and color of things became the core content in the development of the poetics of the Jin and Song Dynasties, a trend criticized by such critics as Zhong Rong and Liu Xie, who denounced the poetry that indulged in description of things and maintained that poetry should resume the traditions of metaphor and evocation (bixing 比兴) from the Han and Wei dynasties and of the relationship between the object and the self as expressed in “correspondences between feelings and objects.” Such criticism was advocated by later generations, and resulted in many negative comments …

Cultural Studies And The Intellectual Genealogy Of Chinese American Scholars: The Controversies On Lydia H. Liu's Study Of The “National Character” And Beyond, Shi Li

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Lydia H. Liu's criticism on Lu Xun's discourse of national character is not an isolated case in literary criticism, but part of the theoretical nomadism of “translated modernity.” Be it Lydia H. Liu’s conceptualization of “translated modernity,” Leo Ou-fan Lee’s “pursuit of modernity,” David Der-wei Wang’s “repressed modernity,” Rey Chow’s “repressed visuality” or Shu-mei Shih’s “lure of the modern,” the theoretical purport of theirs tends to examine the complex relationship between Chinese literature and politics in the 20th century from the perspective of power criticism, and reflect on the “repressive regime” behind the modern nation-state. The formation of this knowledge …

Cruelfictions Of Psychoanalysis: From Freud To Kafka; From Derrida To Mignotte, Rabaté Jean-Michel

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Derrida has asserted that the main problem encountered by psychoanalysis is the existence of cruelty, a question that has never been solved. Touria Mignotte has responded to these criticisms and queries in Cruelty, Sexuality, and the Unconscious in Psychoanalysis by deploying a concept of cruelty that is not simply cultural but psychoanalytical. Following Mignotte’s lead, I attempt to situate the investigation at a foundational level that looks at the body. Derrida’s argument about psychoanalysis is compared with Deleuze’s essay on sadism and masochism, after which I outline points of convergence in their approaches, which leads to discussions of texts by …

Evaluation Of The Identity Of “Fengren” In Classical Chinese Poetics, Shiwei Lv

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

“Fengren” is a reference of identity from The Book of Poetry. Classical Chinese poetics has formed a unique evaluation of the identity relevant to the discourse of “Fengren,” which is suggestive of the ethics in The Book of Poetry. In contrast to the identity of “Saoren,” “Fengren”’s identity is linked with political criticism and sarcasm. As “Feng” and “Ya” are gradually distinguished, “Fengren” is differentiated from “Cairen” and becomes increasingly recognizable in terms of expressing meanings metaphorically through things. Thanks to the author community and the content of “Feng,” the style of folk lyric is formed with “Fengren” at its …

From Textual Experiments To Experimental Texts: Expressive Repetition In “Artificial Intelligence Literature”, Tianhua Zhu

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

In the 70 years since the birth of artificial intelligence, attempts at literary “creation” with computers have run through the course of technological development, creating what one might call “artificial intelligence literature” (AI literature). Evolving from “textual experiments” carried out by technological researchers to “experimental texts” that explore the possibilities of literary conceptualization, AI literature integrates original problematics including machine thinking, text generation, and machine creation, which exhibits the two-way interaction between social ideas and technological practice. In the early stage, the closed-loop of mutual verification between artistic ideas and technological choices turned out to be a failure, while AI-driven …

Hong Shen’S Artistic Experience And Psychological Journey In The Early 1920s: A Study Of Newly Discovered Correspondence Between Hong Shen And George Pierce Baker, Tingting Zhao

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

I did archival research at Harvard University in the summer of 2019 and found that there were eight letters between Hong Shen and his mentor, Professor George Pierce Baker, from 1920 to 1923. Moreover, a letter that Professor Baker wrote to a certain editor referred to Hong Shen. Most of these letters have never been mentioned in the literature, and those that were mentioned require further study. As these letters from a hundred years ago are valuable to research on Hong Shen, I have specially translated them into Chinese and have done a preliminary study. These letters not only reveal …

How The Althusserian Critics Inherit And Develop Marx’S Thought Of Artistic Production, Jifang Duan

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

How Althusserian critics inherited and developed Marx’s thought of artistic production is an important theoretical issue in the development of Marxist theory on literature and art. Louis Althusser, Pierre Macherey and Terry Eagleton put forward important theoretical concepts such as “symptomatic criticism”, “silence” and “aesthetic ideological criticism” within the framework of Marxist philosophy and ideology, expanding Marx’s thought of artistic production in the light of the relation between ideology and aesthetic discourses, and thus they have enriched the theoretical connotation of Marx’s theory and promoted the thought of artistic production, enabling it to take root in textual criticism and move …

How Did Yuan Zaju Become “Literature Of Its Time Period”: Revisiting The Idea “Every Time Period Has Its Own Literature”, Dajun Xu

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The sequence of literary form that “poetry of the Tang dynasty, ci-poetry of the Song dynasty and drama of the Yuan dynasty” is often used to advocate the value of Yuan zaju. However, it does not necessarily lead to the assertion that “every time period has its own literature”. In each period of history this assertion conveys different meanings, including the origin, coordination and variation of Yuan zaju, but the value judgements were based on Yuan zaju’s property of verse, considering it as successor of folk-song-styled verse, the exemplary model of dramatic poetry, or the highest level of Chinese poetry. …

Adapting: A Chinese Philosophy Of Action, Mercedes Valmisa

Gettysburg College Faculty Books

If you are from the West, it is likely that you normally assume that you are a subject who relates to objects and other subjects through actions that spring purely from your own intentions and will. Chinese philosophers, however, show how mistaken this conception of action is. Philosophy of action in Classical China is radically different from its counterpart in the Western philosophical narrative. While the latter usually assumes we are discrete individual subjects with the ability to act or to effect change, Classical Chinese philosophers theorize that human life is embedded in endless networks of relationships with other entities, …

「社會主義時期」的藏地「生態政治」與「政治生態」: 以阿來「機村史詩」爲例, Huaji Xu

Lingnan Theses (MPhil & PhD)

藏族作家阿來在「機村史詩」中以非凡的創造力描繪出了當代中國政治變動和社會風潮影響下的邊疆風貌，「民族」與「生態」成爲他文學中至關重要的命題。明乎此，本論文從移風易俗、勞動生產、救災行動三方面入手，把作家的藏地生態書寫置於毛時代的「民族話語」和「國家敘述」中加以考察，揭示出藏地從傳統「山神社會」向現代「國族社會」轉變的艱難歷程及其仍在進行時的歷史形態。在阿來的史詩創作中，毛時代的歷次革命/政治運動和諸種民族建制力圖將藏族作爲「少數民族」納入到「中華民族」，訴諸於「想象的共同體」式的國族認同；然而包括異域風情、自然資源、信仰習俗和民族心理特質在內的藏地「人類生態體系」自始便是此宏大敘事的重要一環，在國族整合中扮演重要角色，而且在這組交織纏繞、二律背反的關係中帶出當地藏民平等和正義的種種困局以及各式「被壓抑的聲音」。概言之，本論文聚焦阿來作品中「社會主義時期」（1949—1979）的「生態政治」與「政治生態」及其文學特色，以民族/族羣理論和生態批評爲主要研究方法，既期望對尚待開掘的內地少數民族文學研究和海外熱門的中國研究作初步的探討與迴應，也希冀藉阿來對「階級鬥爭爲綱時代的藏地」的生態描摹與文學重塑，燭照今日之西藏問題。

Confucian Leadership Democracy: A Roadmap, Yutang Jin

Comparative Philosophy

What kind of polity is justified by classic Confucian values? Adopting an interpretive approach, this paper explores the idea of leadership democracy being expressive of classic Confucian values by first introducing the models of leadership democracy associated with Weber and Schumpeter and second connecting Confucian elitist values to them. I argue that leadership democracy best realizes the Confucian emphasis on the people as the source of legitimacy and the ruler as the engine of good governance. The Confucian idea of people-rootedness is borne out by citizens behaving as democratic plebeians who are empowered to choose their leader but devoid of …

Theory And Philosophy: Antonyms In Our Semantic Field?, Jay Martin

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Building on the argument of a 1996 piece called "For Theory," which situated "theory" in a force field of its putative opposite terms, this essay explores the way "philosophy" has come to be considered an antonym of "theory" in much contemporary discourse. It argues that despite their often contrasting meanings and connotations, the two terms would benefit from a dialogue in which the strengths of each were acknowledged without their being either hierarchically positioned or turned into bland synonyms.

Literature's Loss Of Status? Which Status? Whose Status?, Carvalhão Buescu Helena

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Humanities' loss of symbolic status and, most especially, literature's loss of symbolic status have, in the last decades, been stated, and frequently overstated. The pessimistic position is to consider that there will be no way back – as if we were at the famous "end of history" that Fukuyama thought to have foreseen with the end of the Berlin wall and the pivotal historical moment lived in its wake. I propose to look at this question with a deeper historical insight, taking into consideration that status (either gained or lost) is always a matter of perspective, of position, and of …

"Asked Of Everyone As If A Duty": On Immanuel Kant's Question About The Idea Of A Common Sense, Chen Chen

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

"Whence the feeling in the judgment of taste is asked of everyone as if a duty" is a question that Kant asked at the end of Section 40 of Critique of Judgment. The answer to this question is related to one's understanding of the relationship between two parts that are ostensibly irrelevant – Sections 31-40 and Sections 41-42 of "Deduction of Judgments of Taste". Although scholars raised numerous explanations to unite these two parts and to interpret the latter part, they have not reached an agreement due to the difficulty in understanding Kant's question. In order to solve this problem, …

On Liu Yin's Idea Of "Relaxing In The Study Of Cultural Arts" And Literary Thoughts, Wanli Yang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Liu Yin (1249—1293), a Neo-Confucian scholar in the early Yuan dynasty, had achievements not only in the Neo Confucianism, but also in literature, calligraphy, painting, zither and chess. He proposed the concept that "arts are fundamental practices", and for the first time compared literature and arts to the "six arts" in the ancient times, enhancing the status of arts in Neo-Confucianism. In his practice of cultural arts, Liu connected the thought of "observing things" with the spirit of "acquiring knowledge through observations of things". Furthermore, he expressed a desire for secluded life in the artistic world, showing a relaxed attitude …