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"A Close Affinity With The Concept Of The Dao": Toward Walter Benjamin's Idea Of Revolution, Fenves Peter

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

This paper takes its point of departure from an enigmatic concept Benjamin briefly discusses in one of the fragments he wrote in the early 1920s in conjunction with his search for an appropriate topic for a qualifying dissertation — the concept of action — or agent-determinative knowing, which, he suggests, may be comparable to the concept of the Dao." After analyzing the fragment in question, the paper seeks to demonstrate that in the early 1930s Benjamin develops this Dao-like concept under the rubric of two terms drawn from the vocabulary of ancient Greek thought: "mimesis" is the name under which …

A Study Of The Phenomenon Of The Quasi-Peach Blossom Spring And The Poetry In The Late-Qing Dynasty, Qihua Sun, Shijin Luo

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The image of "The Peach Blossom Spring" created by Tao Yuanming (365?-427) became a motif since the Liang dynasty in Chinese ancient literature. The reception of the Peach Blossom Spring had shown two dimensions of the nothingness and the concreteness during the Tang and Song dynasties. However, toward the late Qing dynasty, the gradual appearance of quasi-Peach Blossom Springs and the poeticization of them, perhaps due to the social turmoil, especially brought by the Taiping Civil War. The understanding of the unrealistic vision of the Peach Blossom Spring and the wish for it during the turmoil constructed the mindset of …

The History, Region And Cultural Community Around The Paintings Of Ten-Thousand-Mile Yangtze River During The Song, Yuan And Ming Dynasties, Jin Yue

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

During the Song, Yuan, and Ming dynasties, there emerged in large numbers of paintings under the title of Ten-Thousand-Mile Yangtze River. On the one hand, these paintings with inscribed poems and essays by elite literati collectively shaped the image of the Yangtze River, and established a cultural community with regional and historical identity centering on the Yangtze River. This greatly strengthened the sense of national identity and its presence. On the other hand, these paintings were collected into classified books as encyclopedic references during the late Ming dynasty, and became cultural products for mass consumption. Through copying, reproduction and dissemination …

Letters On Literature And The Internalized Drive For Literary Debates In The Ming Dynasty, Hua Ye, Huan Du

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

As one of the traditional forms of literary criticism since the Han and Wei dynasties, letters on literature played an important role in the establishment of Chinese literary criticism framework. Based on the writers' identities and attitudes, these letters can be grouped into "the presenting type", "the replying type" and "the dialogue type". The theoretical nature of the epistolary style and the contextual constraints resulted from its reciprocal relationship, promoted in-depth scholarly dialogue and avoided the possibility of forcible reinterpretation of the text by later generations. Primary contents in the literary correspondences shifted from summaries of writing experience, reviews of …

On Jean-Luc Nancy's Reinterpretation Of The Sublime, Qi Wang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Different from Jean-François Lyotard and Jacques Derrida, Jean-Luc Nancy's reinterpretation of the concept of the sublime highlights its functions of combatting metaphysical totality, defending difference and witnessing the un-presentable. What Nancy does is not only to rethink the "presentation" and "limit" of the sublime, but also to reflect on the end of art, the relationship between imagination and the sublime, the sublime offering and so on. Nancy divides Immanuel Kant's aesthetic schema into two paradigms — "aesthetics sublates philosophy" and "philosophy sublates aesthetics" — and believes that neither accurately demonstrates the essential state of being in the postmodern condition. Nancy …

On The "Portrait Paintings" In The Late-Ming Fictions And Xiqu, Yaping Cai, Guofu Cheng

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Portrait paintings were prominent in ancient Chinese fictions and xiqu (traditional Chinese opera), and the close relationships between them have not been duly explored. In late Ming-Dynasty fictions and xiqu, portrait paintings have been used in eighteen fictions and xiqu to construct the plots. These paintings usually gave a frontal image of the characters, with occasional glamorization for a unified representation of both the appearance and the spirit to achieve the integration of the character with the scenery. Three developments in the late-Ming Dynasty may explain why portrait paintings were prominent in the fictions and xiqu: the revival of figure …

Shame, Queer Theory, And The Affective Turn: A Study Centering On The Scholarship In The United States, Ling Yang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Starting with Eve Sedgwick's shame theory, this paper examines queer theory scholars' explorations into shame in the United States and their continuing dialogue on the political potential of this particular form of affect. The paper argues that the theorization of shame has left a distinct mark on affect theory. The notion of shame has provided impetus for reflecting on queer politics, ethics, historiography and aesthetics, and its intersections with categories such as gender, sexuality, disability and race also offer new points of depature for social and political analyses.

Synopsis Of The 9th Youth Forum Of Chinese Association For Theory Of Literature And Art, Xin Lu

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

No abstract provided.

The Achievements Of And Inspirations From The Psychology Of Tragedy, Ersu Ding

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The Psychology of Tragedy (1933) by Zhu Guangqian is a monumental work in the history of Chinese theories of tragedy. Written from the unique perspective of a Chinese scholar and moving with ease among major Western theories of tragedy, its author had raised therein a good number of great insights that are still valid today. Zhu Guangqian's greatest contribution to the theory of tragedy lies in his modification of Aristotle's theories of "catharsis" and "hamartia", legitimating the plot of innocent suffering and introducing into the mix of tragic feelings such important concepts as love and regret. Probably due to his …

The Complete List Of Theoretical Studies In Literature And Art, Vol. 1-6, 2020, Studies In Literature And Art Theoretical

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

No abstract provided.

The Essence Of Qian Gurong's Aesthetic Personality, Jun Wu

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Focusing on the editorial arrangement of Qian Gurong's collection of self-selected works, this article explores Qian's theoretical system of "literature as a study of humanity" and the characteristics of his literary criticism. It also investigates the features of his critical theories and examines, based on the stylistic analyses of his essays, the aesthetic personality of Qian. In terms of intellectual experience and cultural taste, Qian is an academic, who blends the ancient and the modern, the foreign and the domestic in his studies. He emphasizes, in particular, the personalization of classic aesthetics, and views the continuation of traditional culture as …

The Poverty Of Experience And Its Wayout In The Information Age: An Exammination From The Perspective Of Walter Benjamin, Bin Sun, Yanfen Zhang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Experience generates from memory. However, if memory only serves as an accurate recollection of the past, it is destined to be replaced by modern technology, which can provide information instantly. Therefore, memory is presented in the form of story, which makes it possible to pass on experience across generations. But the art of storytelling is reaching its end due to the challenge of information, a new form of communication. The essence of information is instant verifiability. This even cancels the distinction between impression and idea since instant information renders all perceptions forceful and lively impressions. Yet, it is its force …

Reinterpreting The Aesthetics Of "Zerstreuung": From Walter Benjamin To Jonathan Crary, Peng Zhang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Walter Benjamin's and Jonathan Crary's respective understanding of the concept of "Zerstreuung" is in sharp contrast to each other. Benjamin detects not only a connection between "Zerstreuung" and the bourgeoisie in the capitalist entertainment industry, but also an unconscious collusion between "Zerstreuung" and the public in the early film technology. Such collusion has created a state of "Jetztzeit" for the audience by using the technique of montage in film, so that the audience could reconstruct their historical consciousness, which is transformed into a collective experience from that of the individual, thus assigning early cinema with the potential of politicizing aesthetics. …

The Way Of Life, "The Third Sex", And The Method Of Reconstructing "Literary Native Soil": Centering On Yan Lianke's They, The Women, Zhudi Ye, Leiguang Wang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

There are three key points for the understanding Yan Lianke's non-fictive work They, the Women: the way of life, the study of women centering on "the third sex" and the imagination of native-soil China with non-fiction as the method. They respectively correspond to three dimensions of the work: the content, the author's thought, and the creation of literary style. These three dimensions are closely intertwined and focus on one issue: how to understand and imagine contemporary native-soil China. The numerous characters and their stories in They, the Women are woven together by the author's language and thought with strong subjectivity, …

Classic Literary Criticism As The Embryo Of Productional Literary Criticism, Wenfang Yao

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

A significant development of Euro-American literary criticism in the 20th century is its progress regarding the issue of "art production," which, by including into it the practice of literary reading and literary criticism, breaks through the previous theoretical assumption that "art production" is limited to literary creation. Classic critics such as Albert Thibaudet, T.S. Eliot, Ivor Armstrong Richards, and Northrop Frye have, through practical experiences of literary criticism, discovered and confirmed the production of literary criticism. They have not only embarked on verifying such production through scientific experiments, but also conceptualized the ways in which productional criticism can be conducted …

Development, Pragmatism, And Innovation: Classical Xiqu Studies In Shanghai In The Past 70 Years, Jingfeng Huang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Since 1949, five generations of scholars on classical xiqu studies have emerged continuously in Shanghai. Scholarship in the three major fields of research, namely, ancient theories and criticism of xiqu, chronological research of ancient xiqu writers and works, and interdisciplinary research, has engaged scholars of all generations and exerted great influence. The research on ancient theories and criticism of xiqu has witnessed a process of pioneering the filed, expanding purviews, integrating studies as a whole, reinvestigating the entire scholarship, and exploring the core inquiries. Such interlacing process of horizontal expansion and longitudinal excavation is typical of the historical path of …

Indexicality Strikes Back: From The Photographical Past To The Digital Present, Jia Peng

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Indexicality as a logic category of signs anchors semiotic cognition and reality. As photographs record the existence of objects, indexicality is considered as the evidence of the "objectivity" of photographic signs. With the development of digital technology, indexicality seems to decline and even disappear, since the objects of images no longer necessarily exist. Yet, in Peircean semiotics, the relationship between indices and objects could be either "existential" or "empty", and the latter is further interpreted by Roman Jakobson with the concept of "shifters", a term re-visited in contemporary semiotics of art and image. In the semiotic production of digital images, …

Reflection And Development: A Review Of 70-Year Study On Ci-Poetry In Shanghai, Guozhong Peng, Zehhua Liu

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The study of ci-poetry in Shanghai since the founding of the People's Republic of China can be divided into three stages: transition, prosperity, and development. In the transitional period, the study of ci-poetry in Shanghai focused more on ideological content than on artistic characteristics, and more on the style of "haofang" (the bold and unrestrained) than "wanyue" (the graceful and restrained). During its prosperous period, the study of ci-poetry in Shanghai began to reflect on the previous research. Driven by the fever for aesthetics and methodology, Shanghai has witnessed fruitful production of scholarly works on ci-poetry. After entering the stage …

Reflections On Post-Human Discourse: Centering On Slavoj Žižek, Xinting Liu

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

There has been a joint effort seen in 21st-century philosophy and cultural theories to understand and respond to the impact of current technological revolution on social culture and the existence of subjecthood. Slavoj Žižek has always placed his elaboration on and questioning of the two post-human schools and tendencies in his ideological criticism of digital capitalism. The common tendency between post-human thought of the Cultural Left and the singularity theory of trans-human theory is shown in the "Promethean shame" and the new myth of the human-machine hybridity. Žižek's works over the decades have always focused on the development of cutting-edge …

The Progressive Logic Of Contemporary Literary Theory And Its Theoretical Reflection, Daren Lai

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

From the perspective of history of scholarship, contemporary literary theory does not transform or develop in a simple linear fashion, but rather evolves in a more complex spiral cycle, which specifically constitutes three rounds of transformation and development, namely, the three reciprocal stages of breaking established traditions, introducing foreign theoretical resources, and constructing new critical ideas and forms. The external track of development and internal logic of progress of contemporary literary theory are, on the surface, related to the social and cultural structure in the context of grand historical changes, and echoes the developments of modern Chinese literary theory in …

Transformational-Generation: Dynamic Mechanism Of Literary Speech (On The Language Poetics Of The "Yale School," Part Ⅱ), Dengyun Dai

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The linguistic thought of the "Yale School" mainly includes three aspects: (1) the intuition about three dimensions of language (the signified dimension, the inter-dimension, and the self-reflective and referred dimension), (2) the revelation of the transformational-generative mechanism of literary speech, and (3) the new verdict on the primal paradox of the unspeakable. The contents of these three aspects form an organic whole, which cannot be discussed separately. In general, the transformational-generation of the three dimensions of language refers to a mysterious mechanism: from the establishment of the signifier-signified relationship to the loss of reference, from the establishment of the inter-subjective …

What Is "Die Reine Sprache" About: A Discussion On Walter Benjamin's Early Philosophy Of Language, Fanke Wan

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Walter Benjamin's philosophy of language centering on "pure language" (die reine Sprache) is considered as the primary motive power of all his further theories. It is not only related to many themes in Benjamin's philosophical landscape, but also shows a writing style, the philosophical background of which is known as "Irrkünste". However, in the scholarly discussions on Walter Benjamin in China, this critical stage was either marginalized or reduced to be the adjuvant of some grand theories, overshadowing its theoretical potential and connotation. This article analyzes the key term of Benjamin's early philosophy of language, "pure language", specifically by looking …

Culture Stress And Difficulties: Lived Stories Of Teenaged Mothers In Macau, Luis Miguel Dos Santos

The Qualitative Report

The traditional Chinese culture influences perspectives toward family, marital status, and living style in Macau SAR, where Eastern cultures meet Western cultures. Although the Western living styles and standards highly influence the daily practices of residents; broken marriage, single parenting, and divorce are considered taboo in the community. The purpose of this study was to understand how teenaged single mothers describe their sources of stress and difficulties in the city. Eight single mothers, who were at different stages in single parenting and broken marriages, were interviewed and asked to share their lived stories. Guided by the Ecological System Theory, analysis …

A Report On Preparing The Council On East Asian Libraries’S (Ceal) Statement On Collection Development And Acquisition Amid The Covid-19 Pandemic: In Collaboration With The North American Coordinating Council On Japanese Library Resources (Ncc) And The Society Of Chinese Studies Librarians (Scsl), Fabiano Takashi Rocha

Journal of East Asian Libraries

The COVID-19 pandemic forced libraries to close temporarily halting the access to physical collections. As a result, many libraries started reformulating or implementing collection development policies that favour the acquisition of electronic formats. Given the low, and in some cases nonexistent, availability of resources in electronic formats in the non-English publishing realm, concerns were raised by several area studies organizations about the equity and representation in collection development and acquisition. This report provides insight on how the Council on East Asian Libraries (CEAL) , along with the North American Coordinating Council on Japanese Library Resources (NCC) and the Society of …

China’S Rural Statistics: The Contemporary Chinese Village Gazetteer Data Project, Yuanziyi Zhang

Journal of East Asian Libraries

In July 2018, the East Asian Library (EAL) of the University of Pittsburgh Library System (ULS) initiated the Contemporary Chinese Village Gazetteer Data (CCVG Data) project to create a series of open-access online datasets of China’s rural statistics selected from the library’s collection of Chinese village gazetteers. The current datasets contain data from 1,000 village gazetteers in 18 categories. As an ongoing project, the goal is to reach 2,500 to 3,000 villages. A database that allows effective and efficient ingesting, querying, manipulating, and displaying CCVG data will be available for use by the end of 2020. This article serves as …

The Forest, The Trees, The Bark, The Pith: An Intensive Look At The Circulation Rates Of Primary Texts In Ten Major Literature Areas At The University Of Oregon Libraries, Jeff D. Staiger

Charleston Library Conference

This poster looks at the circulation rate for literary primary texts, which constitute a unique area of collecting in academic libraries: while they do not in most cases meet immediate research needs, it is assumed that libraries ought to acquire them, for reasons including future research needs, preservation of the cultural record, and the ability of members of the intellectual community to stay current, those these remain primarily tacit. The circulation trends of contemporary literary works in ten areas of literature (English, American, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Latin American, Chinese, Japanese, and Russian) over the past twenty years at the …

The Validity Of Online Learning And Teaching Of A Spanish Using An Online Delivery Mode, Rosalind Arthur

South East Coastal Conference on Languages & Literatures (SECCLL)

Incorporating Online learning as an optional delivery mode of instruction in tertiary institutions with traditional campuses has been the trend in recent years. The question is whether it should be offered universally or with some discrimination. The presenter teaches Spanish at an HBCU which has been offering some general education courses online during the summer.

Needless to say, while online programs are lucrative, it behooves the instructors and institutions to ascertain the viability of the product in terms of the learning needs of the target population. Must enrollment into these courses be open to all or be vetted in order …

El Asadito Y El Cumple: Personajes Y Espacio Como Formas De Significado, Mariana Pensa

South East Coastal Conference on Languages & Literatures (SECCLL)

El asadito y El cumple: personajes y espacio como formas de significado

En este ensayo se realiza una aproximación a los filmes El asadito (2000) y El cumple (2002) ambos dirigidos por el cineasta argentino Gustavo Postiglioni. Nos detendremos especialmente en la función connotadora del espacio y los personajes en los dos filmes, que remite tanto a una atmósfera espacial sofocante como a personajes alienados, anclados en una innacción existencial.

Observaremos cómo se va construyendo la tensión, expresando así la radiografía de un grupo de personajes que tienen una memoria común, y que se constituyen en síntomas y a la …

Conference Program 2020, Seccll Conference

South East Coastal Conference on Languages & Literatures (SECCLL)

SECCLL Conference Program for 2020

ترجمة الأدب العربي في الصين في السياق التاريخي والثقافي في العصر الحديث والمعاصر, Ma Tao

Al Jinan الجنان

قد شهدت قضية ترجمة الأدب العربي في الصين تطورًا مندجمًا في تغيرات اجتماعية في العصر االحديث والمعاصر، خصوصًا منذ حركة الأدب االحديث التي نشأت في بداية القرن العشرين. وكذلك شهدت تحول دوافع المترجمين لترجمة الأدب العربي، من الخدمة لتنوير الشعب وإنقاذ الوطن، إدخال وضع للإيديولوجية والتخطيط السياسي، ثم السعي إلى الجمالية الفنية والتبادل الثقافي. ولم يؤثر الأدب المترجم من اللغة العربية في بيئة الأدب الصيني فحسب، بل قد راح يؤدي وظائف إيديولوجية وشعرية لم يكن يتحلى بها الأدب الإبداعي الصيني في حقبة معينة؛ فهو قد شارك، ّ إلى حد ما، في بناء الثقافة الصينية الأساسية في العصر الحديث والمعاصر.