Chinese Studies Commons^™

American Contemporary Literary Studies And Natural Science, Yongfang Qi

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

This paper aims at delineating how the American literary research has adopted the methods traditionally applied in natural sciences and analyzing its achievements. The paper claims that the adoption of natural science methods in literary studies has the following main achievements. When the dichotomy between fiction and reality is undermined, the mutual influence between them can be realized, and the concept of literature and the scope of literary studies can be re-defined. The unique nature of literature has been highlighted to explore all possible dimensions of the world for the seeking the evolutionary direction for human being, while literary studies …

Capitalism And FreedomAs Text/Antitext: Deconstructing And Decentering Friedman’S Neoliberal Canon, Gregory Mahoney Josef

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

An odd symmetry appears when reading Milton Friedman's canonical neoliberalism in tandem with Jacques Derrida's deconstructive techniques: both authors, it can be argued, are ensconced in a Heideggerian, capitalist hermeneutic. Both offer reactionary discourses for "justice" per their respective paradigms of a radical freedom of choice. This congruence marks a special opening — not just the standard invitation to deconstructive relativism — to re-read Friedman in a manner consistent with Derridean, subjective freedoms that Friedman would otherwise ascribe us in the marketplace. More importantly, this re-reading takes place following a ten-year period that saw global neoliberalism reach absurd heights of …

Ecological Sensibility In Contemporary Western Cinema And The Theory Of Ecocinema, Shaoyi Sun

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

This paper aims at introducing and analyzing the theory and practice of ecocinema inspired by literary ecocriticism at the turn of the new century. Based on an examination of the main concepts and lines of thought of some prominent ecocinema theorists and thinkers in the West, the paper argues that ecocinema has acquired its own terminology and become independent of its literary predecessor. This is mainly demonstrated in four aspects. First, from the perspective of cinema as a visual medium, debates about ecocinema have centered on issues of cinematic representations, film genres, and visual languages. Secondly, from the perspective of …

What Kind Of Game It Is? A Comparison Between Bourdieu’S Literary Field And Becker's Art World, Wenchao Lu

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Pierre Bourdieu's literary field and Howard S. Becker's art world are influential in the sociological study of art. Some claims that both the literary field and the art world are essentially consistent and some claims that Bourdieu focuses on conflict while Becker on cooperation. This paper, however, argues that neither claim has grasped the essential difference between them. To compare the two concepts, this paper uses the metaphor "game" as a framework and concludes that Bourdieu's literary field is a zero sum game while Becker's art world is a game. The participants in the literary field are a caricature role, …

An Exploration Into Cao Xueqin's Notion Of Novel Writing Through The Titles Of His Dream Of The Red Chamber, Qingyu Li

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Cao Xueqin’s novel Dream of the Red Chamber had five different titles. These titles reflect the author’s different notions of novel writing. The title A Precious Mirror to Love Affair implies an allegorical discipline, the titles The Story of the Stone and Emotional Monk’s Record indicates authentic record of the real things, the title Twelve Beauties of Jinling tries to be a legend to question the world, and the final title A Dream of the Red Chamber expresses the notion of "a dream being the same as a play." The change of titles reflected the evolution of Cao Xueqin's notion …

Qi Rushan And Mei Lanfang's Chinese Montage: Modernizing Peking Opera Through Recomposition, Tingting Zhao

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

This paper examines the efforts of Qi Rushang and Mei Lanfang to transform the traditional Beijing opera into a new art form for the modern audience during the 1930s. The method of Chinese montage they used, which they named as "recomposition," is essentially a technique that deconstructs and reassembles the elements of traditional opera, such as gestures and mise-en-scene, while keeping intact its traditional essence. This paper hopes to interpret the connections between Eisenstein, Brecht, and Peking Opera, so as to explore the strong correlations between artistic forms and montage across borders in the 1930s. It highlights the fact that …

The Formation Of Chinese New Poetry As Translated Modernity, Liming Chen

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

This paper approaches the modern construction of Chinese "new poetry" from the perspective of translingual practice, and argues that the production of the new poetry is a combined result of the pursuit of cultural transformation and the influence from the Western modernity while translation functions as the medium. Chinese literary modernity presents itself first in the Europeanized baihua (vernacular mandarin). The vernacular mandarin baihua was not originated in as late as the late Qing dynasty or the early Republic of China, as commonly believed, but as early as the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, for its close relation with …

The Narration Of Desire In The Late Qing Dynasty Novels And Modernity, Weiwei Fang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The Late Qing Dynasty was a period of rapid transition from the traditional to the modern society, and the novels produced during the period took on a special character due to society background and scholars' mentality. Not only does the unique narration of desire in the novels exhibit as "the excess of economy" that subverts the tradition, but also the imagination of the feminine and the urban writing took on strong atmosphere of the modern.

The Practical Orientation And Hasty Theorization In The Expansion Of Literary Theory: An Unfinished Case On Literature And Literariness, Nan Gao

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The expansion of literary theory has been accepted by all the related circles. However, the theoretical explorations into it appear haste and leave much to be clarified. Central to the expansion is the argument over the relationship between literariness and literature, whereas literariness becomes crucial for social life to be included into literary theory. In fact, the concept of literariness itself is not sufficient to support the theory. The leading role of literariness in the expansion arises from the so-called marginalization of literature, which reflects a strong sense of loss among the elitist thinking of literature and literary theory. However, …

A Revolutionist's Loyalty Crisis And Its Dissolution: A Re-Reading Of Wang Meng'sBu Li, Dongfeng Tao

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Wang Meng's novel Bu Li ("Bolshevistic Salute") is about the loyalty crisis of the protagonist Zhong Yicheng, a Chinese revolutionist. The terror of the loyalty crisis lies in that Zhong can never be an independent being but is totally attached to revolution itself. The faith of a revolutionist and the loyalty to Chinese Communist Party serve as the foundation of Zhong's identity, and his relation with revolution becomes the sole reason and meaning for his life as well as the guarantee for him to be a "human." The only thing he can be is a revolutionist and a son of …

Earl Miner, Comparative Poetics And The Construction Of World Poetics, Ning Wang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

In the international circles of comparative literature and literary theory, comparative poetics dealing with literary theory still occupies a position although elite literature and its theory are impacted by cultural studies. In this aspect, American comparatist Earl Miner's pioneering contribution should not be neglected. Although Miner was not the first to shift scholarly attention to the study of Eastern comparative literature and literary theory, it may be argued that his intercultural explorations into comparative poetics have surpassed his precursors or contemporaries like René étiemble, Douwe Fokkema and James Liu, entering the field of general literary and theoretical studies. Miner's contribution …

The Pragmatic Path Of The Somatic Turn In The Western Aesthetics, Xiaohua Wang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Since the early 20th century, a somatic turn has presented itself as increasingly influential in the Western aesthetics. As the science of sensory recognition, it initiates a return to the body-subject and life-world. In this process, the contribution of pragmatism is prominent. Since Charles Peirce proposed the principle of practice, the perspective which values the body has been introduced. The endeavors of scholars like William James, John Dewey and Charles William Morris have all constructed the artistic-esthetic paradigm on the basis of body experience. From the 1980s onwards, scholars such as Richard Shusterman and Mark Johnson put forward and define …

A Canon Of Fantastic Literature Studies: On Tzvetan Todorov's The Fantastic: A Structural Approach To A Literary Genre, Fang Tan

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Fantastic literature is an important part of the world literature, and also one of the long-term concerns of the Western literary criticism, resulting in a large amount of works and studies. In his The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre, Tzvetan Todorov defines from the perspective of the structuralist poetics the fantastic novels as a literary genre and tries to reveal the mechanism inherent in the genre. Although this book has been the subject of considerable controversy since its publication, it is still, because of its original and insightful views, a must-read canon for the study of the …

A Supplement To Kant's Antinomy Of Appreciative Judgment, Junfeng Cao

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The antinomy of appreciative judgment proposed in Kant's Critique of Judgment is a unique way of representing the inherent contradiction in aesthetic experience, and it embodies Kant's dialectics in its developmental form. After an elongated process of complex reasoning, Kant believed that he had elaborated clearly the antinomy but actually his solution did not achieve the desired purpose. The present paper starts with Kant's standpoint and way of thinking, and tries to supplement his elaboration of the antinomy of appreciative judgment. The re-examination of Kant's antinomy of appreciative judgment may cast some light for contemporary aesthetics.

Contributions Of Kantian Aesthetics To The World And Its Significances To China, Jishan Lin

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

For quite a long time, Chinese aesthetics circle approaches Kant's aesthetics with a strong ideological political stance, which has led to gross misunderstanding and distortion of Kant's aesthetics and resultant failure in evaluating Kant's contributions to the world and the significances to China. The most significant contribution of Kant's aesthetics is that it starts with the modern aesthetic dilemma of empiricism and rationalism aesthetics and departs from there to break through the subjecthood-centred thinking in the aesthetic history. Kant's aesthetics reaches the solution to the focal aesthetic problem of "how pleasant feeling can share the nature of the ration," which …

Chinese Drama Writing And The Evolution Of The Drama Genre, Changji Li

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The researches on Chinese drama style and the drama writing have much to be desired in the scholarship on ancient Chinese drama studies. This paper approaches the genre of Chinese drama from the perspectives of genetic and typological relationships, and it proposes that Chinese ancient drama form matures as the result of literati's integrating folk arts into the drama writing. In terms of narrative methods and structure, the paper analyzes the essential features of drama-prose style (xiwen) from the Southern Song to Yuan Dynasties, the plot-content style (guanmu) in the variety drama (zaju) and the legend style (chuanqi) in the …

Is Modernity A Mirror Or A "Flower"?: On The "Vision" Of Rojas's The Naked Gaze: Reflections On Chinese Modernity, Wei Lin

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The essential issue of visual culture is to position the self and the world through vision. Rojas's subject of research is the literature and arts in the late Qing Dynasty to modern period, and he attempts a visual interpretation of Chinese modernity through constructing a three-dimensional visual system, in which the self-mirroring subjects, audience and object co-exist. He maintains that the body, as a visual object, is both a mirror-like screen, and the unreal image in the mirror, which provides the subject of visual desire as the other with a concrete channel of presentation. Through the interrelationship between time and …

On The Abstraction Of Modern Art And The End Of Art, Xiuyin Peng, Zhendong Wu

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

This paper aims at analyzing the abstraction as a method in the creative process of modern art. The paper argues that the reasons for abstraction may be attributed to two aspects. One aspect is the heteronomy from social modernity, and the other is the autonomy of the development of art itself. Since the birth of modern art, the meta-narrative of abstraction has been overdrawn through repeated transformations, which results in the claim of "the end of art." However, from a perspective not limited to the idea of progressiveness of art, art has not reached its end yet. Instead, art is …

On The Reference Of Directional Positioning In The Han-Dynasty Stone Carvings, Qing Wang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

In the Han-Dynasty stone carvings, the objects positioned at the centre of the planar graph are designated as the reference of directions, with the left on the surface standing for the east and the right for the west. This is the opposite to the direction positioning practice in modern graphics or cartography. This principle of direction positioning was not confined to the stone carvings alone, but was a general rule applied in almost all of the Han rituals such as the sword-wearing ritual of kings, the formation of marching armies, the ceremonial formation of vehicles and horses, and even the …

Three Dimensions Of Kant's Laws Of Nature, Youfeng Hu

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

In his critical philosophy, Kant defined the duality of nature and held nature to be a thing-in-itself that was unknowable in the metaphysical sense. From the perspective of epistemology, however, Kant confined nature into the phenomenal field, claiming the priority of man over nature through the artificial legislation for nature. The inconsistence between nature in phenomenal sense and in the thing-in-itself sense was obvious. In his Critique of Judgment, Kant reconsidered the interconnection between the two different concepts of nature through his re-explanation of nature from the teleological perspective, and he eventually put forward the proposition that nature generates itself …

文苑 (重刊號第14期), 第十八屆嶺南大學學生會中文系系會 (流觴)

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The Tokugawa Samurai: Values & Lifestyle Transition, Kathleen A. Mcgurty

Student Publications

The Tokugawa period of Japan was a time of great prosperity but also great strife among the social classes. Of the most affected peoples of the Japanese feudal system was the samurai, who had so long been at the center of military and even political power. For hundreds of years, these highly revered peoples had lived a consistent life based off of virtues passed on through a code, and have also lived comfortable lives due to special powers that were reserved for them.

However, with a lack of warfare and increasing Western influence on the political, social, and military system …

The Literariness Of Theory: A New Perspective On Writing Textbooks Of Literary Theory, Yang Liu

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Toward the second decade of the 21st century, literary theory textbooks should absorb the recent developments in literary theory around the world. In contrast to the two existent measures of aniti-theory and the politicization of theory, "the literariness of theory" may be more instructive in the writing of college literary theory textbooks. Literariness has gradually entered the academic field of humanities and liberal arts, and it has helped to form a legitimate discourse for the discipline of literary theory. This discourse is mediated through situations which have the contents such as narrative, fiction, imagination, metaphor, language, dialogue, suspense, anecdotes and …

The Paradigm Shift Of Literary Theory And Its Discourse Renovation, Wenfang Yao

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The literary theory discourse has undergone extensive innovation in recent decades in two main ways: using the existent concepts and inventing new concepts. When inventing new concepts, two methods are seen to be reinvesting existent concepts with new meaning and changing the meaning of the existent concepts. These transformation mechanisms are corresponding to Kuhn's theorization of paradigm and Foucault's theorization of discourse. The discourse innovation is required for the paradigm shift in literary theory, and it embodies the prescriptive features of the literary theory paradigm such as the age, society, economy, geography, and language, giving new content and form to …

The System Of The Press And The Emergence Of Chinese Contemporary Literature, Jun Zhang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The way the system of the press intervenes in the emergence and development of Chinese contemporary literature (1949-1976) requires convincing research from the academic circle. In fact, the system of the press affects the existence of contemporary literature in the three progressive aspects. Initially, the socialist ownership of the press turns the old-new and left-right dichotomies into the imbalanced state dominated by "the literature for the new people." Then, the agency dilemma of the press leads to the competition between the different literary discourses and interests in the internal integration of contemporary literature. Finally, the operation principles of the sectionalist …

The Sociology Of Texts And The Institutionalisation Of Literary Languages, Zima Peter·V.

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

This paper is divided into three parts. The first part is based on one of the basic insights of the Russian Formalists, namely that the literary text is linked to society by language, an insight that is absent from traditional sociologies of literature. The second part defines the literary text as a universal linguistic experiment that is at the same time a model of society at a particular historical moment. The third part deals with the question how literary languages are institutionalised by individual writers or groups of writers in manifestos, collective works and experimental texts. The basic aim is …

On Steinberg's Appreciation Of Jasper Johns: A Reflection On The Criticism Of Avant-Garde Art, Xiaolin Qiu

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The stylistic difference between the avant-garde art and the traditional proves to be a big challenge even to art critics. The pressure posed by the title of art critic may propel the critics to produce a pioneering theory or an over-interpretation. Over-interpretation may be exemplified by Leo Steinberg's appreciative analysis of Jasper Johns. After a close examination, the paper claims that Steinberg had not really stepped out of the dominating shadow of formalism. The essential reason for his failure lies in the fact that Steinberg failed in grasping the essential nature of self-authorization in modern art, and the paper maintains …

On The Marginalization Of Natural Beauty In The Western Aesthetics Under The Context Of Modernity, Zedong Zhou

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

This paper aims to analyze from the perspective of modernity the causes of the marginalization of natural beauty in modern and contemporary Western aesthetics, after pointing out that aesthetic studies have been increasingly focusing on arts instead of nature as its object. The marginalization of nature in aesthetics is closely related with modernity, as the philosophical foundation of modernity is the rationalization of subject-centeredness. The highlighting of the subjecthood under the Enlightenment rationality was significant in defying God's sovereignty, but with its development and its turn to instrumental rationality, Enlightenment rationality had gradually evolved into a form of power or …

On The Temporality In Shklovsky's Literary Thoughts, Yanshun Liu

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Shklovsky maintained that literary works are for the high-quality reading pleasure, which is embodied in the moving and spontaneous time-course. He then started with the effect of reading on the automation and the breaking of "attention," trying to distinguish between literary language, everyday language and scientific language, and proclaimed that the pleasure of reading literary works is intuitive and fresh. When reading literary language, the pleasure of reading was not only strengthened in intensity but also prolonged in duration, and reading experience was understood as a process of the internal time consciousness. In his later years, he proposed the mobile …

Reflection On The Discursive Evolution Of The Socialist Realism In The Soviet Union, Qichao Zhou

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Literary criticism is a form of discursive practice. Socialist realism is a key concept in the process of contemporary literature both in the Soviet Union and in China. The delineation of the trajectory along which the concept evolves may help the reflection on its historical function. In terms of the effects of the discursive practice, "the open system" of socialist realism is de facto "openness in conservatism," which does promote the "spiritual liberation" in the circles of literary criticism and literary creation. The open system can also be understood as "open conservatism," and it was indeed meant to be the …