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A Study Of Franco Moretti's "Materialism Of Form", Chunrong Qian
A Study Of Franco Moretti's "Materialism Of Form", Chunrong Qian
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Directly influenced by Galvano Della Volpe's Positivist Marxism, Franco Moretti pursues objective and scientific literary research. The most concrete manifestation is his use of metering method. Of course, Althusser's Structuralist Marxism is the main context for Moretti's entire thought. Though he accepts Lukacs' s proposition that "forms are the true social factor in literature", there are three unique features in his thinking about the proposition compared with other Marxists. Firstly, forms are not conceptual or abstract, nor do they exist for the need of theories. Rather, forms are a part of stylistic theories, stylistic practices and styles. Secondly, forms are …
Why Is K. A Land Surveyor?, Yanbing Zeng
Why Is K. A Land Surveyor?, Yanbing Zeng
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
In Franz Kafka's novel The Castle, the protagonist K. claims that he is a land surveyor by profession. However, K. has no land to survey, which undermines the certainty of K.'s profession. Why, then, did Kafka choose this ancient profession for his protagonist? The uncertainty of K.'s identity, the paper claims, implies that K. is in essence an explorer of existence. Thus, Kafka was a pioneer of existentialist writers. Giorgio Agamben argues that the protagonist K. gets the name from kardo, an old instrument for land surveying. The land surveyor's work is to establish and to break boundaries — not …
From Neutrality To The Other: Levinas On Blanchot, Jiajun Wang
From Neutrality To The Other: Levinas On Blanchot, Jiajun Wang
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Levinas's and Blanchot's literary theory coalesced while maintained a tension in between. They both tried to break through Heidegger's ontological literary theory, but Levinas used "the other", and Blanchot used "the outside" as the weapons to achieve this goal. In general, Levinas and Blanchot showed us two different and yet connected ethics and literature. The former intended to use ethics to transcend the totality of philosophy, but ultimately found the literary language in the depth of this ethics, which made the ethics become literary; the latter intended to use literature to transcend the identity of philosophy, but ultimately found the …
From "Image" To Simulacrum: Derrida's Discussion On Writing, Shubao Dong
From "Image" To Simulacrum: Derrida's Discussion On Writing, Shubao Dong
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Writing is one of the key words in Derrida's deconstructive philosophy. In his Of Grammatology, Derrida refers to the claims of writing from Plato to Rousseau and down to Saussure, confuting their idea that "writing is the image of speech". However, Derrida, inspired by Saussure's principle of difference that "in language there are only differences," and expounds the relationship between writing and difference, by which he transforms Saussure's static difference into the dynamic difference. Writing plays the game of difference in simulacra, and fills up the simulacrum in the supplemental movement of "image", Writing finally becomes a roaming orphan, which …
On The Experiential Basis Of Beauty, Hongxiang Li
On The Experiential Basis Of Beauty, Hongxiang Li
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The concept of beauty has been abused in contemporary popular aesthetics, which attributes the beautiful to the superficial experience of human body and fails to understand the spirituality of true beauty. In contrast to beauty in everyday sense, true beauty exists in ecstasy, a holistic experience integrating body and mind, in which people may feel a transcendental sense of reality. Different from pathological illusion, the ecstatic sense of beauty signifies nature's manifestation in human life and testifies to the intrinsic harmony between humankind and the universe. Through the lens of ecstasy, this article examines true beauty in three dimensions: reflections …
"Andersstreben" And Cross-Media Narrative, Diyong Long
"Andersstreben" And Cross-Media Narrative, Diyong Long
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The term "Andersstreben" means that a type of medium seeks to imitate the features of another type while keeping its own characteristics. In terms of narrative, "Andersstreben" means cross-media narrative. Regarding fiction that features cross-media narratives, we need to understand both its own medium particularities and the other media properties that it pursues. Only in this way can we better appreciate its aesthetics. Cross-media narratives primarily originate from the mutual imitations between temporal arts and spatial arts, and often achieve magical artistic effects and rich artistic connotations that are otherwise unattainable for literature and arts by simply sticking to their …
On Issues Of Internet Literature As A Research Topic, Youquan Ouyang, Yufei He
On Issues Of Internet Literature As A Research Topic, Youquan Ouyang, Yufei He
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Theoretical criticism centering around Internet literature has recently witnessed its growing boom. Issues being popularly addressed include not only the construction of evaluation system for Internet literature, social benefits it brings, legal regulations, but also its cultural heritage, industrialization, categories, reviews, overseas spread, corpus construction, and tendency in research direction. The aim of this article is to review the current situation of Internet literature as an academic hot spot and to reflect on it through a discussion of its dynamics and limitations.
Poetry And The Generation And Maintenance Of National Community: The Core Issue And Line Of Thinking In Heidegger's First Lecture On Hölderlin, Zhenhua Zhang
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
This paper is an interpretation of Heidegger's first lecture on Hölderlin. The lecture centers on how a national community is created and maintained, and Heidegger's belief is that poetry plays as decisive role. Poets are hailed as "demigods" between the sphere of divinity and that of people. Poetry-writing embodies the message of God and passes it to the people, and achieves the connection between them; hence a national community is generated.
The Ethics Of Memory In Adorno's Aesthetic Utopia And Its Transform, Wenjun Ding
The Ethics Of Memory In Adorno's Aesthetic Utopia And Its Transform, Wenjun Ding
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Regarding how art exists after Auschwitz, Adorno argues that the legitimacy of post-war art is based on representing the memory of accumulated intergenerational suffering, which reflects on and criticizes Auschwitz and its roots in modernity with reference to Walter Benjamin's methodology of theological redemption. Memories of sufferings exist in artworks in a constellation-like structure, causing explosive production of meaning and breaking the monopoly of meaning and value by the identity system. With remembrance as the means, art presents the memory of suffering concerning Auschwitz, and offers a new understanding of the development of contemporary capitalism and possibilities for imagining a …
A Semantic Analysis Of Kant's Judgment Of Taste, Shuangyu Xue
A Semantic Analysis Of Kant's Judgment Of Taste, Shuangyu Xue
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
A typical judgment of taste could be expressed as a subject-predicate structure in Critique of the Power of Judgment. The subject is connected with the predicate by a copula. In the third Critique, however, Kant grounds his theory of taste on the first Critique, from which his views and conceptual apparatus of epistemology have been transferred to a new aesthetic context, and interpreters are inclined to investigate Kant's theory of taste by virtue of his epistemology. It is common, if also necessary, to conduct in studies of the third Critique a semantic analysis of judgement of taste by referring to …
Art As The Foundation Of History: On The Historical Dimension Of Heidegger's Art Criticism, Congcong Song
Art As The Foundation Of History: On The Historical Dimension Of Heidegger's Art Criticism, Congcong Song
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
In the latest years, the debate between Heidegger and Schapiro on Van Gogh's Shoes has received considerable attention among the Chinese scholars. Despite the controversy over Heidegger's interpretation of the painting, scholars have reached an agreement that Heidegger's art criticism derives from his philosophy of art and therefore lacks the insight of art history abundant in Schapiro's scholarship. This assertion, to a certain extent, misunderstands Heidegger's thought. This paper argues that Heidegger's art criticism also contains a historical dimension, for he not only investigates art history but also pays close attention to the relationship between art and history. The difference, …
On The Possibilities, Construction, And Functions Of Trauma Narratives, Weihua He
On The Possibilities, Construction, And Functions Of Trauma Narratives, Weihua He
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Trauma narratives are made possible by the "traces" left by traumatic events. These narratives are not only therapeutic, but can also provide an access to historical reality. In recent years, critics begin to switch their attention from individual traumas to collective traumas. According to them, collective traumas not only affect people's identification with the community, but also play important roles in the formation, maintenance, and consolidation of the community. Due to the shaping influence of collective traumas, different forms of power are woven into the representation of trauma, making the representation of trauma a product of cultural construction. In the …
Schematizing Without A Concept: Kant On The Harmony Of Imagination And Understanding, Wei Li
Schematizing Without A Concept: Kant On The Harmony Of Imagination And Understanding, Wei Li
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Kant's theory of the harmony of imagination and understanding either leads to an inconsequent claim that "everything is beautiful" or fails to ensure the universal validity of judgements of taste. This paper proposes to approach the dilemma by way of Kant's notion of "idea—schema—the-expression-of-the-idea" developed in "Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic," interpreting the text from a noncognitive-idealist approach. This approach starts with Kant's "schematizing without a concept," claiming that this "schematizing without a concept" is an indeterminate schematization, and thus initiates a noncognitive-idealist interpretation of the harmony of imagination and understanding. This approach, on the one hand, solves the problem …
The Unfinished Theoretical System Of Modernism: Origins In The Forms Of Knowledge, Xiaoming Yi
The Unfinished Theoretical System Of Modernism: Origins In The Forms Of Knowledge, Xiaoming Yi
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The theoretical system of Modernism remains unfinished. This is due to the unstable nature of the concept of Modernism and its complicated relationship with Modernity. More importantly, although Modernism has developed into a new type of arts in the technological context, the current perception of Modernism remains within the old humanist knowledge framework and lacks a dimension of technological knowledge. For this reason, we need to turn to media theory to understand the new aesthetic paradigm of Modernism. McLuhan's media theory, for example, can better explain such aesthetical forms. The perception of Modernism is limited by the lack of technological …
Habermas And Hermeneutics: From Verstehen To Lebenswelt, Wolin Richard
Habermas And Hermeneutics: From Verstehen To Lebenswelt, Wolin Richard
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Throughout his career, Habermas sought to remain faithful to the idea of a non-dogmatic and reflexive Marxism – Marxism as "critique." Although Habermas never adopted the framework of social phenomenology per se, by the same token, his reception of the later Husserl's notion of the lifeworld would play a central methodological role in his later work, enabling him to parry the well-entrenched scientistic biases of philosophy and social science. In "Knowledge and Human Interests" (1965), his inaugural lecture at University of Frankfurt, Habermas embraced Husserl's critique of modern science's misguided "mathematicization of nature." Yet his systematic employment of Husserl would …
The Everlasting Voyage Of Heteronymy: Badiou's Discussion About Pessoa And Plato, Huan Wang, Jiang Lan
The Everlasting Voyage Of Heteronymy: Badiou's Discussion About Pessoa And Plato, Huan Wang, Jiang Lan
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Through his analysis, Badiou discovers that the "heteronymy" thoughts in Pessoa's poems reflect his anti-Platonic tendency. Despite this, Badiou also notices the entangled connections between Pessoa's poems and Platonism. In fact, the modernity of Pessoa lies in his ambivalent position between Platonism and anti-Platonism; the task for contemplation poetry is not to pledge loyalty to Platonism or anti-Platonism. Instead, we should follow the poetic path opened up by Pessoa and create a philosophy about heterogeneity, void and infinity.
From "Phenomenological Body" To "Reversible Flesh": The Transformation Of Merleau-Ponty's Aesthetic Theory, Zhifeng Shu
From "Phenomenological Body" To "Reversible Flesh": The Transformation Of Merleau-Ponty's Aesthetic Theory, Zhifeng Shu
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Merleau-Ponty's philosophical thinking is also aesthetics. Such an openness is vital for him, since it concerns the sensitivity and becoming of selfhood philosophy, without being trapped in the dilemma in traditional philosophy. With the transition from the "phenomenological body" to the "reversible flesh" in his philosophy, Merleau-Ponty' aesthetics shifts from perception and sensibility to ontology and "element". In his early works Cézanne's Doubt, Indirect Language and The Voice of Silence, and late work Eye and Mind, painting is always central to Merleau-Ponty's aesthetic thinking, because the pure "vision" in painting refers to the visual dimension that is ignored and marginalized …
An Exploration Of Literary Mimesis Through The Perspective Of Mirror Neurons, Huibin He
An Exploration Of Literary Mimesis Through The Perspective Of Mirror Neurons, Huibin He
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Mirror neurons are discovered by Italian scientists Giacomo Rizzolatti and his colleagues, which are not only active while people are acting, but also active when they are observing others' action. Mirror neurons, which imitate the action of others just like mirrors, can lead to "motor equivalence" between readers and characters. Human imitation, which is often accompanied by anthropocentrism and egocentrism, can be divided into simple ones and complex ones, and can also be divided into imitation of content and imitation of form. Mimesis, which traditionally means the writer's imitation of the world, can by extended into the field of the …
What's Wrong With Star Wars, Star Trek And Žižek?: A Marxist Analysis, Gregory Mahoney Josef
What's Wrong With Star Wars, Star Trek And Žižek?: A Marxist Analysis, Gregory Mahoney Josef
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
Star Trek and Star Wars are two of the most popular science fiction franchises in commercial history. This essay examines these two franchises from a critical Marxist perspective. Both offer fantastic visions of human development, which I will argue prove all too familiar to the reified consciousnesses of contemporary consumers. How and why do these films appeal, and how do they repackage the "end of history" in ways that normalize current logics of hegemony for a future that remains founded, nevertheless, on forms of injustice and commodity fetishism as familiar to us now as they were to Marx in the …
The Predicament Of Anglo-American Aesthetic Experience And Its Extrication, Yu Zhao
The Predicament Of Anglo-American Aesthetic Experience And Its Extrication, Yu Zhao
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The concept of "aesthetic experience" has fallen into a serious predicament since the late 20th century, especially in Anglo-American philosophy. Sometimes this concept is put in the core position in aesthetics and art theories, while other time even its existence is questioned, only being taken as phantom or myth; According to some philosophers, this concept is commendatory and represents only those affective experiences, while in other philosophers' eyes, this concept is purely descriptive and can also contain those experiences without any affects or emotions. Underlying this predicament is the wrong binding of aesthetic experience with the definition of art, and …
A Reinvestigation Of Kant's Concept Of "Interesse": A Reinterpretation Of The Chief Element Of The Power Of Judgment, Xianliang Xu
A Reinvestigation Of Kant's Concept Of "Interesse": A Reinterpretation Of The Chief Element Of The Power Of Judgment, Xianliang Xu
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
This article takes Immanuel Kant's concept of "interesse", and investigates its meaning for understanding of Critique of the Power of Judgment. According to Kant, interesse does not mean that the judging subject is disinterested in beauty, but in the real existence of the object of judgment. Within such a frame, the freedom internal to aesthetic judgment is highlighted. Because interest always concerns the real object, aesthetic judgment without interest is free from subjective preference. Under such circumstances, the subject is entitled to the request of the same judgment from others and thus together they reach universal identity. The freedom is …
Retrospect And Re-Exploration Of Structuralism, Qichao Zhou
Retrospect And Re-Exploration Of Structuralism, Qichao Zhou
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The cross-disciplinary and multi-lingual theoretical journey of "structuralism" is one of the essential topic in contemporary international literary criticism and comparative poetics. Is "structuralism" a school or ideological trend? Roland Barthes argues that structuralism is neither a school nor a movement but an activity. Is "structuralism" a theory or a methodology? Structuralist Jan Mykarovsky believes that structuralism is neither a theory nor a methodology but a cognitive position independent from both. Structuralism de facto is not only a construction activity but a cognitive position and even an ideological paradigm. It is the structuralist criticism belonging to dialogue and interactivity, contrast …
"Cultivating Our Own Garden": How Does Art Face The Imperfect World?, Yun Fan
"Cultivating Our Own Garden": How Does Art Face The Imperfect World?, Yun Fan
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The term "utopia" as semiotic discourse pays a crucial role in contemporary culture and art practices. Since the "play" theory raised by Schiller, art has been perceived as a vehicle to escape the reality and a weapon to resist it. Subversion becomes the major form of Art's utopia, especially in contemporary culture: artists try to offset the rotten world with innocent artistic imagination. Utopian alienation or subversion is not the only way that artworks adopt to solve the problem of the imperfect world. By confronting the imperfect reality, art can help us to mature into personhood without being cynical and …
The Tension Of Expression And Ways To Balancing, Yue Jiang
The Tension Of Expression And Ways To Balancing, Yue Jiang
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The "crisis of expression" in the humanities and social sciences is caused by the imbalance of expression tension. The phenomenon of expression tension is very common; it is not only found in the same text and different texts of the same object, but also in the process of understanding, expression and re-understanding the same text. The text tends to be successful when the various expression tensions are balanced. When one of the tensions is too strong to keep balance, it either leads to the failure of the expression, or produces texts of aggressive expression. The purpose of analyzing the expression …
Engaging Or Not: The Theoretical Divergence Between Roland Barthes And Jean-Paul Sartre, Songlin Jin
Engaging Or Not: The Theoretical Divergence Between Roland Barthes And Jean-Paul Sartre, Songlin Jin
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
In What's Literature?, Sartre put forward the literary viewpoint of engagement, suggesting that writers should engage with the social life by writing actively, and express their own positions for social or political issues, so as to protect the freedom of individual existence. Roland Barthes, then a young literary figure, criticized seriously Sartre's viewpoint in Writing Degree Zero, contending that such writing not only was polluted by arbitrary ideology, but also burdened itself with the weight of ethics. In order to liberate literature, Barthes tried his best to propose the writing at degree zero or the neutral writing, and to establish …
Symmetries In The Semiosphere: A Typology, Leone Massimo
Symmetries In The Semiosphere: A Typology, Leone Massimo
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The article points out that the current expansion of the semiotic focus from signs and texts to whole cultures needs the development of a coherent method. It therefore proposes to establish the method through an application of the topological theory of fractals to the analysis of different kinds of symmetries in the semiosphere. Having defined fractals as resemblance between two topological structures, the article first dwells on what "resemblance" means in the comparison of both visual and conceptual patterns; it then proposes a typology of fractal similarities, based on the topological operations of rotation, translation, and reflection. Examples of each …
"The French Theory" In The United States, Yang Lu
"The French Theory" In The United States, Yang Lu
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
As the embodiment of the post-modern discourse in the past half century, "the French Theory", in fact, is nothing but a product of Americanization, reflecting its trace in America. Francois Cusset's The French Theory: How Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze & Co. Transformed the Intellectual Life of the United States, a book worthy of reading, outlines the New World’s trail of "the French Theory." In Francois Cusset's viewpoint, Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont's Impostures Intellectuelles is a turning point in the reception of "the French Theory" by the American academic circles. As to why the French theory could only be received in …
Linear Narrative ― Did It Ever Exist?: Traditional Narratives Read As Fragmentary Vs. Fractured Post-Colonial Ones Read As Linear, Hajdu Péter
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The ground hypothesis of this paper is that narratives are not per se linear or fractured: linearity and fragmentariness are interpretive achievements. Readers interested in the experience of coherence tend to find linearity in every narrative, while those who like the representation of a fractured human condition will hardly experience linearity anywhere. The hypothesis is tested through four examples. The first one could be regarded as the most obvious example of linear narratives The Three Musketeers. A careful reading of its "Introduction" suggests that this text tends to advertise its fictionality, continuously plays with the focalization, undermines the identity of …
A Cultural Inquiry Into The German Enlightenment Tragedy, Yuan Zhang
A Cultural Inquiry Into The German Enlightenment Tragedy, Yuan Zhang
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
In the light of modernity horizon, the German tragic dramas from 1850s to 1930s represented by Schiller, Goethe and Lessing may be argued to have been most deeply influenced by the Enlightenment Movement and become an independent cultural phenomenon of Enlightenment. The German tragic drama embodies the characteristics of German Enlightenment and infuses modernity to the German national culture, and it may well be called Enlightenment Tragedy. German enlightenment tragedy becomes an expression of the modernistic pursuit of German enlightenment culture, and the paper demonstrates the five aspects of the modernity German enlightenment tragedy pursued.
Signs Of The Return To Literary Studies From The Debate On Literary Canon, Wenfang Yao
Signs Of The Return To Literary Studies From The Debate On Literary Canon, Wenfang Yao
Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art
The debate on literary canon in 1970s raised the cultural issue behind literary canonization and promoted the turn from literary study to cultural studies. The turn, however, has also resulted in a return to literary studies, which could be seen in the 1990s arguments of some representative scholars engaged in the debate. Scholars such as J. Guillory, Harold Bloom and Jonathan Culler have all expressed that the canonization of literary texts should center on literature and aesthetics. Their common appeal also implies an inherent logic which helps to reconcile the debate on literary canon.