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Full-Text Articles in Chinese Studies
Can "Contemporaries" Know How To Read?, Rabaté Jean-Michel
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.
The Subject Qua Other: A Hauntological Spell On Lacan, Yuan Yuan
The Subject Qua Other: A Hauntological Spell On Lacan, Yuan Yuan
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
This project interrogates the dubious nature and the polemic role of the other in Lacan's discourse of the subject by invoking Derrida's ideas of hauntology. The Lacanian subject, albeit baffling and elusive, has been consistently labeled as "the subject of lack" by almost all critics including Felman, Ragland-Sullivan, Wilden, Derrida, Butler, et al. Departing from this established position, I probe Lacan's subject in terms of the subject qua other; contesting that in both imaginary and symbolic orders his subject is inescapably meshed with and dispossessed by some spectral and/or specular other. The mirror stage not only fabricates an optic illusion …
Polyphonic Novel And Polyphonic Music, Qian Hao
Polyphonic Novel And Polyphonic Music, Qian Hao
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Besides some similarity, there are many differences between Bakhtin's "Polyphonic Novel" and Western polyphonic music, for example conflict and harmony, pluralism and monism, confrontation and imitation, incompletion and perfect termination, historical background and many other aspects. Realization of these, and some concepts like counterpoint and bitonality in musical senses, will help us avoid interdisciplinary misusing of these terms. Compared to "polyphonic", "dialogical novel" may be the more suitable antonym of "monologic novel", because "dialogue", which can include various meanings that the term "Polyphony" wants to express, is not only the core of Bakhtin's poetics, but also the essential feature of …
Strength Of Voice: The Making Of "Literary Culture" And The "New Individual", Jing Yang
Strength Of Voice: The Making Of "Literary Culture" And The "New Individual", Jing Yang
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Bob Dylan and his rock and roll works are examples of "literary culture", and he is worthy of the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature. Different from ordinary popular music, Dylan's works belong to "imaginative culture", are a continuation of a profound idealistic tradition and carrier of ideological unrest. His works are actively engaged in social issues, and contemplate and interpret common concerns of the times, thus creating a poetic "literary culture" that nourish private life, safeguard free space, and realizes fairness and justice. Through empathy and imagination, they realize and enlarge "solidarity" and therefore create "new individuals", or individuals who …
Symptomatic Reading, Surface Reading, And The Renovation Of Literary Criticism In The New Millennium, Ling Yang
Symptomatic Reading, Surface Reading, And The Renovation Of Literary Criticism In The New Millennium, Ling Yang
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The new millennium has witnessed the emergence of a series of new approaches to literary criticism in the United States that have posed serious challenges to the dominant paradigm of symptomatic reading and the "hermeneutics of suspicion." Focusing on surface reading proposed by Stephen Best and Sharon Marcus in 2009, this article examines the background, basic ideas, representative works, academic responses, and recent development of this new interpretative practice. It argues that the rise of surface reading is closely tied to the external and internal crises that American literary studies have undergone in recent decades. With rapid changes in contemporary …
"The Unspoken Beauty": A Review Of Beauty And Sublimity: A Cognitive Aesthetics Of Literature And The Arts, Lei Yu
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Patrick Colm Hogan's newly published monograph Beauty and Sublimity: A Cognitive Aesthetics of Literature and the Arts aims to explore, among others, the architectural substratum underlying miscellaneous aesthetic responses in literature and the arts, and, by having recourse to a dialogue with cognitive science, enables the previously "unspoken beauty" to secure an unprecedented cognitive attention. This review, on the one hand, focuses and elaborates upon such three crucial topoi as "information processing & emotion system," "aesthetic universals & the diversity of taste," and "variation, canonization & aesthetic argument," as illustrated in Hogan's work, and, on the other, takes issue with …
A Review Of The Sixth Youth Forum Of Chinese Literary Theory Society On "New Changes In Academic Discourse: Academic History, Ideological History And Literary Institutions", Chengguang Peng
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
No abstract provided.
Aesthetic Freedom And Ethical Obligation: A Review Of The Construction Of Lyotard's Theory Of The Sublime, Xiaoyuan Ma
Aesthetic Freedom And Ethical Obligation: A Review Of The Construction Of Lyotard's Theory Of The Sublime, Xiaoyuan Ma
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Applying the aesthetic theory of Immanuel Kant into contemporary cultural context, Jean-François Lyotard finds that due to grand narratives such as ideology and technological sciences, aesthetic feeling is no longer a free game between intellectuality and imagination, and aesthetics has become something "permitted" and "realistic". Lyotard criticizes grand narratives, claiming that art could break up the framework of grand narratives only if it jettisons the limits of recognizable representations and presents "the unpresentable". Lyotard therefore integrates avant-garde art as well as other theories into his postmodern aesthetics of the sublime. He believes that free aesthetic activities of contemporary culture could …
Digital Manufacturing, Grass-Root Innovation And Sustainable Development: Characteristics Of The Maker Movement In The Uk And The Implications, Wen Wen
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The maker movement in the UK is characterized by: digital manufacturing technology as the tool, grass-root innovation as the pathway and sustainable development as the orientation. Digital manufacturing has not only promoted the digital economy in the UK, but also influenced the traditional craft and necessitated new requirements for the digital education of citizens. In the UK, grass-root innovation is not only embodied in the bottom-up formation and management of the makerspaces but also featured in the makers' daily practice. Meanwhile, aiming at sustainability in both economic and social development, makers in the UK are actively engaging in material research, …
Readymade And The Placing/Stellen Of Truth: A Heideggerian Interpretation Of Duchamp's "Fountain", Yulong Miao
Readymade And The Placing/Stellen Of Truth: A Heideggerian Interpretation Of Duchamp's "Fountain", Yulong Miao
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Through his subversive thinking of Plato's cave metaphor, Martin Heidegger has restored to truth (aletheia) its original significance. Then he bases the origin of art on its relation with truth. The so-called producing (herstellen) of the Earth and instituting (aufstellen) of the World is exactly the placing (Stellen) and placing-together (Ge-stell) of truth. A Heideggerian interpretation of Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain" will attest excellently to the validity of readymade art as the placing/stellen of truth.
On Interpretative Validity Of Intentionalism Against Fallacy Of Private Language: Based On Levinson, Carroll And Davidson's Approaches, Qiao Zhang
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Anti-intentionalism always thinks that any commitment to the concept of intention will lead to the fallacy of private language, representatives of which are theoretical samples like Humpty Dumpty-ism. If Intentionalism is to continue to have interpretative validity, alternative concept of intention must be provided to get rid of the fallacy of private language. This paper presents three approaches of intentionalism revival in analytical aesthetics. The first two versions of the intentionalism reactivate the intention in text interpretation in a place, but still make concessions to anti-intentionalism. It is because both of them share the view with anti-intentionalism that language conventions …
Allure Of Things And Vicarious Causation: Harman's Poetics Of Objects, Xie Shaobo
Allure Of Things And Vicarious Causation: Harman's Poetics Of Objects, Xie Shaobo
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Graham Harman's poetics of objects challenges the linguistic turn which has dominated Euro-American philosophy in the past few decades, calling for a return to the world of things and championing a theory of autonomy and democracy of objects. Harman not only equally teats all forms of being as objects, but sees the components of any singular object as sovereign and autonomous objects in their own right. He has created a series of new concepts such as "allure of things" and "vicarious causation," urging us to look at the world from a radically new perspective and explore the ontology and meaning …
Federal Literatures: Toward A Theory Of Literary Intranationality, Braz Albert
Federal Literatures: Toward A Theory Of Literary Intranationality, Braz Albert
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
There is a general tendency to associate a national literature with a nation-state, a link that at times verges on the mystical. Yet it is common knowledge that there are considerably more sociological nations than nation-states, suggesting that often there is more than one nation in a given country and likely more than one national literature. This essay scrutinizes the real contours of the national bodies of writing produced in multination states in an attempt to develop a method for examining literary production other than the “national literature” paradigm—more specifically, federal literatures.
New Evidence To Some Issues Of The Linchuan School Of Drama In The Ming Dynasty: On The Basis Of The Historical Facts Of Tang Xianzu's Associating With His Fellow Countrymen, Zhiyong Chen
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
In the Ming Dynasty, Linchuan, in addition to Suzhou, Nanjing, and Hangzhou, is another important center of drama where Tang Xianzu is the core. The center formed around a family with remote village communities and the members include Xie Tingliang, Shuai Ji, Wu Shizhi, Zeng Ruhai, Zheng Zhiwen and Xu Fenpeng. These writers have different degree of social contact with Tang Xianzu, and tend to have similar creation and thought. It is reasonable to consider the Linchuan drama group during the period of the late Ming dynasty as an independent genre of drama. More importantly, to explore the activities of …
St John The Baptist: Da Vinci's Irony, Chunlian Chen
St John The Baptist: Da Vinci's Irony, Chunlian Chen
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
In Leonardo da Vinci's St John the Baptist, the figure is androgynous, whose expression and posture look enchanting and tempting. Such an image does not accord with the description in the Bible, which is remarkably unusual in Christian culture. People in the Renaissance began to rethink about truth and revelation of Christian religion, believing that Christian thoughts and culture were not monolithic any more. St John the Baptist predicts the coming of Jesus; namely, he witnesses the true light. However, da Vinci transformed his image characteristics and gave the image new connotation and symbolic meaning, which made Christian truth that …
Descartes's Theory Of Passion And Le Brun's Theory Of Expression: A Study Of Details Regarding The French Classicist Aesthetics During The 17Th Century, Ying Zhang
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Charles Le Brun, the first painter of Louis XVI, delivered several speeches in the Académie royale de la peinture et du sculpture and talked about the question of expressing people's passions. He developed his own theory of expression by consulting the Les passions de l''âme by René Descartes. Some scholars think that it was Descartes who influenced essentially the classicist aesthetics of Le Brun and the académie. Others think that Le Brun radically misread Descartes, and thus they depreciate his theory of painting. This article has a different opinion: the theory of expression was formed by reforming substantially the text …
Kristeva And The Generation Of Postmodernist Literary Theory, Xuemei Zhao
Kristeva And The Generation Of Postmodernist Literary Theory, Xuemei Zhao
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Postmodernist Literary Theory starts from the French poststructuralist and deconstructivist literary theory, Kristeva plays a vital role in the generation of French Postmodernism Literary Theory. In France, Bakhtin's poetics introduced by Kristeva plays a landmark role in the transition of the ideological trend from structuralism to post-structuralism. On the basis of inheriting and developing Bakhtin's dialogue theory, Kristeva proposes the Intertextuality theory, Which establishes her position as the pioneer of poststructuralist literary theory and directly contributes to Roland Barthes' transition from structuralism to poststructuralism. Kristeva also inspires the master of deconstruction Derrida. The "May Storm" in 1968, the Tel Quel …
The Destiny Of Art: On Jean Baudrillard's Aesthetic Thought, Shuyuan Wan
The Destiny Of Art: On Jean Baudrillard's Aesthetic Thought, Shuyuan Wan
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Baudrillard claims that contemporary world is a transparent world characterized by excess, while contemporary art is an obscene world in which the reality is excessive and illusion is deficient. Art has been made entirely deviated from its essence. Therefore, Baudrillard therefore calls for the return of art to its inherent way from "something" back to "nothing," returning to a form of illusion or a form of other-worldness. At the same time, Baudrillard also points out that art as a form has its own destiny, a destiny of seduction. As form of seduction, art should also become a symbolic poetics, a …
A Critique Of Chernyshevsky, Jianjun Li
A Critique Of Chernyshevsky, Jianjun Li
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
In Chernyshevsky's literary criticism practice, reality has the absolute dominance over arts, and this leads to the extremity in his aesthetic concept, resulting in the one-dimensional, closed and narrow understanding of his aesthetics. This paper takes his concept of "life" as starting point to analyze his key views and examine the legitimacy and limitations of his utilitarianism, and tries to do justice to the acuteness, straightforwardness and prejudice in his literature criticism.
Common Sense, Nature Of The Mind And Humanism: A Study On Kant's Aesthetic Taste, Liqun Lv
Common Sense, Nature Of The Mind And Humanism: A Study On Kant's Aesthetic Taste, Liqun Lv
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Kant's aesthetic taste as he had expounded in his Critique of Judgment is not only the foundation for further research on aesthetics but also an important methodological significance. A detailed examination of such concepts as common sense, communicability and disinterestedness reveals the essential characteristics of aesthetic taste and its wide application range in the human domain. In the context of the crisis in the contemporary world, re-examination of the aesthetic taste may provide us a new perspective on the world and human affairs.
From "Revolution" To "Practice" In Everyday Life: The Future Of Life Aesthetics As Seen From The Failure Of The Situationist International, Yuedi Liu
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Although the construction of situations plays a key role in the Situationist International (SI) and the spectacle has become the presented image and method of presentation in the modern world, everyday life becomes another key word which has also run through the whole history of the Situtionist International. The relationship between spectacle and life has taken such a form that life is the foundation of the society with spectacle being the symptom of the society and life is fluid with spectacle being its external phenomenon. SI has realized its historical transition from revolution to practice in everyday life, and the …
From The Text Game To The Source Of Violence: The Idea Of Mimesis In Derrida And Girard, Cheng Lu
From The Text Game To The Source Of Violence: The Idea Of Mimesis In Derrida And Girard, Cheng Lu
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Although the mimetic theory of representation was no longer the mainstream of western literary theory since the 19th century, the idea of regarding arts and literature as the result of "mimetic" acts still has tremendous impact today. Taking Derrida's deconstructive theory of mimesis and Rene Girand's anthropological theory of mimesis as examples and focusing on mimesis as text game and the source of violence, this article attempts to demonstrate that the logic of mimesis is still deeply rooted in the discourse of literary theory nowadays. As the minetic theory has the ethical dimension of relating to others and heterogeneity through …
On Visual Representation And Richard Wollheim's Concept Of Spectators' Seeing, Manting Yin
On Visual Representation And Richard Wollheim's Concept Of Spectators' Seeing, Manting Yin
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The term "representation" has been translated into two Chinese phrases "zaixian” and "biaozheng." The former refers to the direct and intuitive visual perception, while the latter focuses on the social factors which deconstruct the knowledge systems, social institutions and meaning systems. Under this context, this paper discusses the value of visual representation. The paper observes that the contemporary studies on visual perception per se accept both the validity of intuitive perceptual experience and the predetermination of visual experience by cultural systems. First put forward by Ernst Gombrich, this question was advanced by Richard Wollheim through his discourses on the spectators' …
Reflections On Gombrich's Art Theory In The Postmodern Context, Baoqing Mu, Guangsheng Zou
Reflections On Gombrich's Art Theory In The Postmodern Context, Baoqing Mu, Guangsheng Zou
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The fundamental principle of Gombrich's art criticism lies in his adherence to the "golden mean" between innovation and tradition. The sensible art criticism relies on the impartial evaluation of the expressiveness of artistic works and artists' contribution to the establishment of paradigms and norms. However, some contemporary art theorists and critics argue that Gombrich's "golden mean" has actually been out of balance, due to his overemphasis on tradition and his critical attitude towards modern art. Accordingly, a critical survey of Gombrich's rational principle in the postmodern context, with a reflection on the tension and dialogue between traditional thoughts and modern …
Sound And Listening As A Figurative Narration, Yuhui Jiang
Sound And Listening As A Figurative Narration, Yuhui Jiang
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The study of pictorial images could follow two different approaches. One is the Panofskian iconology, which intends to bring the visual images to the higher modes of meaning. The other is the downward approach, which tries to return to the image itself. Deleuze and Focillon are the two advocates of the latter one. The sound metaphor Kandinsky introduced in his explanation of visual elements provides another important path for us to trace the potential motivation of deformation of images. With these crucial clues, the sound and listening as a kind of figural narration could be explained, especially within the reference …
On The System Theory Tendencies Of Contemporary World Literary Theory, Lan Hao
On The System Theory Tendencies Of Contemporary World Literary Theory, Lan Hao
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Since the turn of the century, explorations into world literary theories have taken on the nature of general systems theory, which has been particularly benefited from the impact Immanuel Wallerstein's world system theory. This trend in the study of literary theories represents an attempt to simultaneously transcend the modern and post-modern paradigm. For this trend, world literature system is constructed with the assumption that literature can be holistically approached, which may foreshow an ambition of a systematic macro-reconstruction after post-modern fragmentation, but this trend may be distinguished from the unity of modernism as it rejects unicentrism. The paper argues that …
Apocalypse Now: Walter Benjamin And The Legacy Of Political Messianism, Wolin Richard
Apocalypse Now: Walter Benjamin And The Legacy Of Political Messianism, Wolin Richard
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Walter Benjamin's essay on the "Kritik der Gewalt" (Critique of Violence) has had a curious afterlife. When it first appeared in 1921, it passed almost unnoticed. However, following the collapse of communism, among proponents of the Cultural Left it acquired a canonical salience, in large measure owing to Jacques Derrida’s systematic reliance on it in "The Force of Law: the Mystical Foundation of Political Authority" (1994). However, many of these later interpretations have overlooked the pivotal role that Benjamin's justification of "divine violence" played in his early attempts to revivify political theology, in "Kritik der Gewalt" and related texts. Finally, …
New Changes And Redemption: On The Russian Formalism's Genre Theory, Jun Chen
New Changes And Redemption: On The Russian Formalism's Genre Theory, Jun Chen
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Russian Formalism has two key features of defamiliarization and scientification, and with these features, Russian Formalism is certain to oppose the classical principles of genre classification. Through the mediation of historic procedural poetics, Russian Formalism is linked with literary genre. Genre can be understood as an aggregated system of characteristic procedure, and the nature of its development can be seen in procedure renovation, the replacement of elegant genre with vulgar ones, and genre subversion. The relationships of different schools of normative poetics are not opposite to each other but continual and successive. Historic procedural poetics enables Russian Formalism to play …
On The Interrelated Dimensions Of Materiality In Literary Criticism, Jin Zhang
On The Interrelated Dimensions Of Materiality In Literary Criticism, Jin Zhang
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Since the end of 20th century, the worldwide literary criticism has turned to the study of materiality and manifested the four interrelated dimensions of literary materiality, namely, the materiality of the signifier of literary language and the material properties of texts, the materiality of literary context concerned with the limitations imposed by the social world of economics and politics, the materiality of the perceiving subject and the body through which an aesthetic experience occurs, and the materiality of the represented objects in response to which the experience takes place. The interaction of these dimensions shifts the focus in literary research …
The Enigma Of Visibility: Merleau-Ponty's Philosophical Reflection On Painting In Eye And Mind, Yaojun Zhang
The Enigma Of Visibility: Merleau-Ponty's Philosophical Reflection On Painting In Eye And Mind, Yaojun Zhang
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Merleau-Ponty's Eye and Mind focuses on painting, but underlying the discussion in the book is the relationship between man and existence, as visuality is the sinew for the relationship. This paper proceeds from the discussion in Eye and Mind and investigates the basic characteristics of visuality before continues to analyze the reversible relationship between man and objects which the paper defines as the relationship between the visible and the invisible. The paper maintains that it is possible to approach existence by way of painting.