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What Kind Of Game It Is? A Comparison Between Bourdieu’S Literary Field And Becker's Art World, Wenchao Lu
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, …
Earl Miner, Comparative Poetics And The Construction Of World Poetics, Ning Wang
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
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 …
On The Abstraction Of Modern Art And The End Of Art, Xiuyin Peng, Zhendong Wu
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 …
The Sociology Of Texts And The Institutionalisation Of Literary Languages, Zima Peter·V.
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 The Marginalization Of Natural Beauty In The Western Aesthetics Under The Context Of Modernity, Zedong Zhou
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
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
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 …
Restraining In Theory: A Review Of The Debate Between Derrida And Searle, Qing Feng
Restraining In Theory: A Review Of The Debate Between Derrida And Searle, Qing Feng
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The paper tries to reflect on the debate between Jacques Derrida and John R. Searle, in which Derrida tried to deconstruct Searle's speech-act theory with his usual style of approaching other theories with his preconceived ethical-political view. Searle, on the other hand, reproaches Derrida for his purposeful obscuration in his act of deconstruction and his ignorance of Anglo-American philosophy of language. The debate revealed the political intention of deconstructive criticism, but it has also brought Searle's linguistic theory to the attention of literary theorists.
How Can "Appropriate Aesthetic Appreciation" Be Appropriate? Exemplified With Kendall Walton's Aesthetic Art Theory, Yu Zhao
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Kendall Walton argues that it is not appropriate to practice aesthetic judgment on works of art simply by what could be perceived in the art works, and "appropriate aesthetic appreciation" should rely on (some) facts about the "correct category" and the origins of art works. The paper maintains that his theorization of "appropriate aesthetic appreciation" is actual not appropriate enough. On the one hand, the so called "correct category" has problems that prevent it from performing its critical function; on the other hand, the origins of art works may be of essential importance in art criticism, but they're not sufficient …
Ecolinguistics And The Foundational Construction Of Language Theory For Contemporary Ecological Literary And Cultural Studies, Kuiying Zhao
Ecolinguistics And The Foundational Construction Of Language Theory For Contemporary Ecological Literary And Cultural Studies, Kuiying Zhao
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Language research is closely related with eco literature and cultural studies, while a dilema in the study of eco literature and cultural theory is the need for a proper linguistic theory as its foundation. Ecolinguistics emphasizes the two-way interactions both between language and environment and between language and the world, and takes language as the intermedia between nature and culture, and put the environment of language into the complexity of nature, socity and psychological elements. Therefore, ecolinguisitics can transcend the one-way determinism between the world and language on the one hand and the either-or dualism of the naturalness and artbitrariniess …
A Study On The Multi-Dimensional Space In Frank O'Hara's Urban Poetics, Xiaoling Wang, Mingyuan Zheng
A Study On The Multi-Dimensional Space In Frank O'Hara's Urban Poetics, Xiaoling Wang, Mingyuan Zheng
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
As a leading poet in the New York School, Frank O'Hara's urban poetics stands out for the multi-dimensional space in his poems. This feature is particularly manifested in the visual space, auditory space, and the psychological space in his poems about city, which embodies the blending of urban poetics and space theory. A study on multi-dimensional space in Frank O’Hara’s poetry helps to explore the natural isomorphism of urban poetics in a metaphoric way.
Resistance And Its Possibility In The Perspective Of Deconstructionism: Spivak's View On Subaltern And Its Subjective Consciousness, Yingzhi Li
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Deconstructionism is often seen as a radical anti-essentialist theory, but for G. C. Spivak it is a critique toward that which "we have to inhabit in." This means that deconstructionism not only allows but also requests us to strategically use essentialism. It is Spivak's interpretation of Derrida along this trajectory, this paper argues, that frees deconstructionism from the accusation of relativism and nihilism, and merges with Marxist criticism on capitalism, which makes it possible for the subaltern to construct its subjective consciousness and to maintain a ground for resistance.
The Application Of Referent In Western Marxist Critical Theory And Its Significance, Bi Zhang
The Application Of Referent In Western Marxist Critical Theory And Its Significance, Bi Zhang
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The application of the semiotic concept of referent in Western Marxist critical theory achieves the purpose of recognizing and analyzing the social reality represented by referents, and it has also made up for the blind areas in the methodology of structuralist semiotics. Furthermore, the application has theoretically bridged the two methodological tradition of Anglo-American and Structuralism semiotics, and it also highlights the referent as an important issue in the study of semiotics, and therefore the application has made significant theoretical contribution to semiotics.
Fredric Jameson's "National Allegory": A Defense, Qin Wang
Fredric Jameson's "National Allegory": A Defense, Qin Wang
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Through a close-reading of American literary critic Fredric Jameson's famous essay on Third-World literature, this essay re-examines his concept of "national allegory" and several criticisms of the concept in the subsequent decades, of which Aijaz Ahmad is exemplary. It attempts to show that most critics misleadingly translated Jameson's concept from the dimension of "form" into the dimension of "content" or "theme." This paper proposes an approach to the concept from the perspective of "form" and claims that in the present context of literature and politics this approach may shed some new light on current discussions of the relation between Third-World …
The Death And The Revival Of The Author, Hajdu Péter
The Death And The Revival Of The Author, Hajdu Péter
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The most influential trends in 20th-century literary criticism and theory of literature can be described as revolting against a both Romantic and positivist approach which focused on the person of the author rather than his or her literary product. Formalism, New Criticism, structuralism and post-structuralism denied any importance of the biographical author, and dealt with texts exclusively. After the Barthesian formulation of the death of the author (applauded by towering figures like Foucault or Derrida) the end of the 20th and even more the beginning of the 21st centuries have brought back the importance of the author. For some new …
Cognitive Mapping And The Adventures Of The Postmodern, Kellner Douglas
Cognitive Mapping And The Adventures Of The Postmodern, Kellner Douglas
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
During the 1980s and 1990s, debates about the differences between modernity and postmodernity as historical epochs; modernism and postmodernism in the arts; and wars between modern and postmodern theory defined key theoretical problematics in intellectualized spaces of the West, like the University. Fredric Jameson was one of the initiators of debates over the postmodern, and introduced the concept of cognitive mapping to describe theoretical accounts of the contemporary moment. I discuss conceptions of theory and mapping in the modern and postmodern debates and sort out appropriate uses of the discourse of the postmodern, and the usefulness of the postmodern turn …
Contemporary Russian Literature And Art Policy And Ideology Reconstruction Against The Revival Of Orthodox Church, Gangjian Tian
Contemporary Russian Literature And Art Policy And Ideology Reconstruction Against The Revival Of Orthodox Church, Gangjian Tian
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The literature and art policy in Putin's era epitomizes the "New Russian Idea" in the ideological field. To fill the ideological vacuum in the USSR, especially the Yeltsin era, the Russian government passed legislation on laws, education and diplomacy to introduce Orthodox Church into the reconstruction of national ideology. Through the core values of the Orthodox Church implanted into Russian literature and arts such as empire worship, eschatological salvation, community sense, etc, the policy of literature and art in the Putin government has performed important role in integrating societal thought, boosting the national spirit, curbing moral degradation, promoting national identity …
Aesthetic Intuition And The Truth Of Art: A Phenomenological Interpretation Of "The End Of Art", Hongbin Su, Yusheng Liao
Aesthetic Intuition And The Truth Of Art: A Phenomenological Interpretation Of "The End Of Art", Hongbin Su, Yusheng Liao
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The end of art as a theoretical claim has been proposed in the Western aesthetics by Plato, Hegel and Arthur Danto. The reason for the repetitive raising of the claim is, the paper argues, that the Western thought is too rooted in the dualism between perception and reason to reach the truth of art. The paper thus proposes the replacement of the perception-reason dualism with the monism of intuition, on the ground that intuition is the original epistemic capacity and the origin of both perception and reason of human beings. Intuition is the capacity to grasp the essence of things, …
Sade, Jouissance Of Reason And The Practical Reason Of Evil, Kailin Yang
Sade, Jouissance Of Reason And The Practical Reason Of Evil, Kailin Yang
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The irreducible goal of Sade's writing does not concern erotism but the Idea, not desire but truth, not history but practice. This paper focuses on the passage from the empirical description to the transcendental idea, from pornography to pornology, or from fiction to truth. The central problem is: what, through his writing, is the enterprise of thought that Sade attempts to build? In Sade, the practical reason of evil is characterized by the experience of limit and the dialectical transformation. The stake of his writing does not, however, pertain to debauchery, crimes, profanation and so forth, as the most essential …
Looking Through Endgame: On Adorno's Conceptions Of Modernist Theatre, Cheng Lu
Looking Through Endgame: On Adorno's Conceptions Of Modernist Theatre, Cheng Lu
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Beckett's theatre of absurd was regarded by Adorno as the most quintessential modernist artworks. In Notes to Literature, Adorno interpreted Beckett's Endgame against the background of the post-WWII historical and psychological crisis. Firstly, the meaningless living of the characters in Endgame leads to Adorno's delineation of a declining subject in a rational age. Secondly, Adorno found in Endgame some anti-existentialist literary elements, which prompted him to re-interpret the relations between subject and situation and endow Beckettian absurdity with novel theoretical significance. Thirdly, Adorno considered Endgame as a parody of traditional drama, which was, for Adorno, a deviation from the rational …
The Voyage Of Gremais' Matrix, Han Qian, Xiuduan Huang
The Voyage Of Gremais' Matrix, Han Qian, Xiuduan Huang
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Gremas' semiotic matrix has been very popular among Chinese critics through the introduction of Jameson. Jameson has revised the semiotic matrix, and made it deviated from semanteme analyses and structuralism calculation. The revised version depends more on intuition, which oversimplifies the conflict between value and the view of value. The paper argues that a more objective and thorough analyses of value and significance may be conducted by returning to the original version of the semiotic matrix.
Life, Art And Potentialities: Agamben's Concept Of Poetics-Politics, Xingkun Wang
Life, Art And Potentialities: Agamben's Concept Of Poetics-Politics, Xingkun Wang
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Human life in the context of modernity, according to Giorgio Agamben, has become a "bare life" and human being is reduced to homo sacer, while the political paradigm has transformed from public space to camp. When taking this into consideration, however, it may not be said that humanism should be resorted as the source for humanist thought. Agamben, following Heidegger, believes that humanism is a degradation of human dignity instead of emancipating and upgrading of the human being. The paper tries to answer how human being's integrity can be recovered to open up new space of politics. This paper focuses …
Inaesthetics And Art As Procedure Of Truth: An Introduction To Badiou's Art Thought, Jiang Lan
Inaesthetics And Art As Procedure Of Truth: An Introduction To Badiou's Art Thought, Jiang Lan
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
For Alain Badiou, art and its creation do not need a preconceived idea to direct or guide, as art itself is one of conditions for philosophy. In light of this, Badiou replaces the aesthetics that subordinates art to the will of philosophy with an inaesthetics that induces truth out of art. Inaesthetics no longer tries to pursue the idea or notion that governs the works of art, but focuses on how artistic creations penetrate the consistent presentations of everyday discourse and tease out truth from the smoothed discourse. This way to artistic creations is like a journey through darkness, with …
Periodizing Postmodernism, Mchale Brian
Periodizing Postmodernism, Mchale Brian
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Looking back over the postmodern decades from the perspective of the twenty-first century, we are now in a position to begin distinguishing internal breaks and discontinuities, as well as continuities, within the period itself. The present paper undertakes to sketch out three phases internal to the postmodern period: first, an onset phase in the Euro-American sphere in the mid-sixties; next, the major phase of "peak postmodernism" in the seventies and eighties; finally, a late-postmodernist or transitional period in the nineties, widely experienced as a pause or lull, a kind of interregnum between postmodernism and whatever comes next. The consensus view …
On The Representative Narration Of Literary History, Guoqiang Qiao
On The Representative Narration Of Literary History, Guoqiang Qiao
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The concept of "historical representation" F. R. Ankersmit advances is wide spread and quite influential in the trend of narrative turn, which, to some degree, can be compared with New Historicism. However, reflected from the perspective of historical narratology, Ankersmit's concept appears to be somewhat idealistic, particularly in terms of the writing of literary history. This article appropriates Ankersmit's concept of "representation," extending it to the field of literary history, and proposes a concept of "representative narration" that associates with but differs from Ankersmit's "historical representation." The author hopes that the concept of "representative narration" could provide the interpretation and …
Schiller's Aesthetic Thoughts From Moral Politics To The Construction Of Aesthetic Utopia, Juan Li
Schiller's Aesthetic Thoughts From Moral Politics To The Construction Of Aesthetic Utopia, Juan Li
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Schiller's reflection on the enlightening rationality and his political concerns are the foundation to his aesthetic thoughts. At a time with manifold problems in Germany, Schiller proposed to cultivate perfect humanity and build moral politics so as to resist the instrumentality-characterized modern politics. However, moral politics is built on the constraining of human nature, and only in the aesthetic utopia can human sensibility, reason and nature be reconciled with inevitability. In this sense, aestheticization is freedom.
Speech Act And The Fiction In Literature, Dakang Ma
Speech Act And The Fiction In Literature, Dakang Ma
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Fiction in literature is the fiction in the sense of utterance performativity instead of that in the sense of representation. Authorized by cultural conventions, literature pronounces the construction of a fictional world as its primary action, and it exploits various strategies to highlight the constructive nature of utterance performativity and the illocutionary force of utterance. Thus, a new mode of intentional relationship can be constructed between people and utterance as the relationship of intersubjectivity, in which all the potentialities in people, utterances and words are summoned into the activities for constructing a fictional world. The paper concludes that, on the …
The Becoming Of A Minor-Literature From A Minor-Language, Yue Ge
The Becoming Of A Minor-Literature From A Minor-Language, Yue Ge
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Becoming-minor is regarded by Deleuze as the most efficient way of fighting against all existing forms of power. In Deleuze's sense, minor-literature that was mainly generated by minor-language was the embodiment of becoming-minor in the field of literature. This paper attempts to reframe Deleuze's thinking upon the relation between literature and politics by probing into the mechanism of minor-language forming. It can be argued that Deleuze critically approached this new relation by examining the mechanism of minor-language through the withered major-language and the blending usage of various languages with different functional and grammatical cases. From the minor-language perspective, another possibility …
Three Decades' Research On Foreign Literary Theory In Theoretical Studies In Literature And Art, Guoshan Tao
Three Decades' Research On Foreign Literary Theory In Theoretical Studies In Literature And Art, Guoshan Tao
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art is a top-ranked professional academic periodical with key influence in China. Since its launch in 1980, it has been targeted at taking foreign literary theory and research as reference to Chinese literary theory. In the past three decades, it aims at connecting with international academic research, from introducing classical works in the column of Translation of Foreign Literary Theory ("FLT") to publishing domestic research papers in the column of Studies of FLT, and in recent years the journal has also published original papers written in English by scholars at home and abroad. Based on …