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"Benjamin: Existence Toward Space": A Confluence Of Philosophy, Poetics And Messiah: An Interview With Peter Fenves, Sha Li, Fenves Peter

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Walter Benjamin was taken as a post-structuralist and a "left" cultural critic in Chinese academia since his thought was first introduced into China in1980s. To trace back to the origin and formulation of Benjamin's aesthetics, an interview is conducted with Professor Peter Fenves, whose German literary and philosophical researches have been based on his explorations and explanations of Benjamin's "Critique of Violence" (1921). The interview focuses on the source of his thought and its trajectory of development, discussing such philosophers and poets as Kant, Leibniz, Hölderlin, Husserl, Heidegger and Derrida who may have influenced Benjamin. In the interview, Professor Fenves …

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, …

Reconstructing The Poetic Appeal Of Contemporary Chinese Prose: A Case Study On Zhao Lihong's Prose, Zhouwen Wu

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The paper explores the poetic appeals in Zhao Lihong's 30-year prose writing from the following three perspectives: the positioning of the authenticity of the author's subjecthood, the choice of the approaches to poeticization, and the creation of the narrative form. The existence of these appeals proves that they reveal a problem unresolved for decades in contemporary Chinese prose. Critically inheriting the poetic tradition in May 4th Period and the First 17-Year-Period of Communist China, Zhao Lihong’s prose constructs a poetic discourse of prose aesthetics, which points to a way for the contemporary and the future prose in China.

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 …

The "Invention" Of System In The Development Of Western Art, Manting Yin

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The development of arts in the 18th century reached a crucial stage in the Western art history, as it saw the gradual emergence of the modern art system. The system, though not shown in the drastic changes of artistic styles and tastes, was significant for the development of the ideas of arts. Different elements help to build an environment for the institutionalization of arts and to promote the establishment of the modern system of fine arts, and the elements include the institutionalization of art criticism, the emergence of modern art historical methods, and the establishment of Aesthetics as a discipline, …

The Changing Of The Person In The Narration In Modern Chinese Literature And Its Intellectual Implications, Huiying Xie, Weiwei Zhou

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The person used in narration is an essential factor of narrative rhetoric, and it plays an important role in the construction and representation of the "realness" in a novel. The choice of the person in narration may, on the one hand, abide by the implicit imperatives which the historical context enforced on "realness," and closely links to the identity of the intellectual group who undertakes the task of narrating. The novels during the May 4th Movement in 1919 correspond to the spirit of individual liberation, and the following two decades saw the transformation to popularization and nationalization. The paper demonstrates …

The Interaction Between Genres And Its Significance For Literary History, Zhongmou Zhang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Ancient Chinese genre system is relatively self-contained, with each genre representing a unique function of expression. The uniqueness is both the condition and the reason for its existence, while the genres within the system co-exist and complement each other, configuring the spirit, psychology, character and temperament of the Chinese as a cultural nation. Chinese genre system has considerable stability during a certain period of literary development, and it may be claimed that the evolution of Chinese literature is that of literary genres. When a new influential genre wedges in the system, it brings about an ecological change of the system. …

The Re-Enchantment Of Aesthetics: Back To Metaphysics, Xuguang Liu

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Only through the perspective of metaphysics can the unique nature of transcendence and idealism of aesthetic activities be explained. Without the setting of idea and universality by metaphysics, engendering the judgment of appreciation is impossible; therefore, aesthetic is metaphysics' child. Only in the thinking of metaphysics, engendering aesthetic is possible. The absence of metaphysics must result in the lack of ideality, so art sink into live, and aesthetic descends to be pleasant sensation. The paper claims that aesthetic will be re-enchanted through re-instating the dimension of metaphysics into aesthetic appreciation.

The Significance Of Bai Juyi As "The Third Pole" In The Tang Poetry, Shijin Luo

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Bai Juyi was a monumental poet and a special cultural icon in the middle of the Tang Dynasty, which was also called "the centre of all dynasties" by Ye Xie. Bai Juyi initiated a turning point in literary writing and influenced the spiritual world and outlook on existence of the scholar-officials, and became "the third pole" of the Tang-Dynasty poetry and culture, along with the other two poles of Li Bai and Du Fu. If Li Bai presented an ethereal poetic prototype and a wayward personal image, while Du Fu composed formally subtle poems with a grave spirit of saving …

The Social Mores Of The Intellectuals In The Capital Of Beijing And The Spreading Of Changzhou Ci-Poetry Theory In The Late Qing Dynasty, Yan Xie

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The theoretical system of Changzhou Ci-Poetry School active in the middle of the Qing Dynasty, though constructed early, reached the mainstream ci-poetry circle as the result of changes in the learning and social mores of intellectuals in the late Qing Dynasty. The want for change was generally felt in the ci-poetry circle in early Daoguang Reign (1821-1850). This want for change corresponded to the political demands of the poet-officials who had newly entered the officialdom, which enabled the spreading of the Confucian idea of ci-poetry in the early Changzhou Ci-Poetry theory. This theoretical idea invested new implications into the ancient …

What Is Our Contemporary Art Theory, Jian Li

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The transformation of Chinese art theory from the classical to the modern takes place within the framework of multiple tensions between such elements as the inheritance and the innovation of traditional ideas, the introduction and reformation of Western resources, and the concerns and responses to the context of the times. The paper proposes that the connotation and features of the art theory in modern and contemporary China may be described with the help of the concept of modernity, as further analyses may be done at the disciplinary level on the logic of its development and on some micro issues. These …

Kim So-Wŏl’S Chindallaekkot (Azaleas) As An Immersive Environment, Wayne De Fremery, Jusub Kim

Barowsky School of Business | Faculty Scholarship

According to English poet Sir Philip Sidney’s well-known Apology, poetry is meant to instruct and delight. In the spirit of this assertion, our ongoing experiments algorithmically detect patterns in vernacular Korean poetic texts and manifest them creatively in digital environments. Our aspiration is to deepen the discussion of vernacular Korean poetry by enabling engagements with Korean poetic texts that privilege image over discourse, if only temporarily. The aim is to see, quite literally, what Korean poems can be in order to deepen discussions of what they are or might mean. This project extends the authors’ previous work by attempting to …

Comparing The Reproductive Climates Of Japan, Norway And Italy: A New Way Of Looking At The Reasons For Low Fertility Rates, Samantha Graham

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

In recent years, much has been made of the looming demographic crisis that is forming in Japan. The declining birthrate and graying of the population has made many government officials, sociologists, and scholars very anxious about what will happen when a nation begins to shrink. These same officials and scholars are also looking for a reason for the decline, and many have placed the blame on Japanese women without examining the reasons these women have for having fewer children or forgoing motherhood altogether. But Japan is not the only nation suffering from population decline. Other smaller, industrialized nations also face …

An Investigation Of American Students’ Tonal Acquisition Towards Disyllabic Words With Same Or Different Tones, Yuan Yuan

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Mastering Mandarin tones is an indispensable path to achieving high Chinese language proficiency and a headache to a lot of American learners. Scholars keep studying this area, but this problem remains unsolved.

Through long-time observation of beginners, I found an interesting phenomenon: many students were able to correctly produce a certain tone (Tone X) which was contained by a monosyllable. However, when the students encountered a disyllabic word with the tone which they were skillful at (Tone X) and another different tone (Tone Y), the students showed no advantage on Tone X. This phenomenon motivated me to do research on …

Writing Women In Northeastern China: Melancholic Narrative In Mei Niang's Novellas, Li Guo

Languages, Philosophy, and Communication Studies Faculty Publications

Mei Niang (1920–2013), the pen name of Sun Jiarui, is a female fiction writer, translator, and editor of Funü zazhi (Ladies’ journal). In the semi-colonial Northeast China, Mei Niang’s exploration of melancholic narratives shore up manifold levels of socio-historical discourses that are constructive of women’s subjectivity. Melancholic narrative functions as an inverted mirror of both the author’s cultural displacement from her diasporic experience, and her portrayal of colonial domination of local elites by the Japanese in Northeast China. Also, the author’s depiction of feminine melancholia revokes the modernist ideology of love and its constitutive male-centered discourses, dismantles the social disenfranchisement …

Introduction To Forum: Nation, Gender, And Transnational Modernism, Ping Zhu, Li Guo

Languages, Philosophy, and Communication Studies Faculty Publications

This forum, sprouted from a thematic panel at the 2013 Annual Meeting of Association for Asian Studies in San Diego, situates its theoretical focus on the intersecting relationship between gender and nation in early twentieth-century China within a transcultural framework. Viewing both "gender" and "nation" as centrifugal sites for discursive production in modern China, the five contributors of this special issue probe into the complex cultural mechanism which placed gender at the center of the nationalist discourse. Reciprocally, the authors explore how the instability of both discourses on gender and nation opens up space for creating subversive cultural imaginaries and …

Chinese Calligraphy: An American Chinese's Perspective, Bridget Gross Duann

Senior Theses

Humanities is the study of culture, history, literature and philosophy. Through a journey of self-­‐revelation and research, Chinese calligraphy will be introduced as more than just a form of art as Westerners see it. Having a basic practical knowledge of Calligraphy, I’ve researched and embellished upon that knowledge. Calligraphy is a long known form of writing, with many styles. Calligraphers from Ancient China reveal their feelings that it is an expression of who they are.

Imagining Female Tongzhi: The Social Significance Of Female Same-Sex Desire In Contemporary Chinese Literature, Ashley Mangan

Asian Languages and Cultures Honors Projects

In the wake of shifting cultural attitudes about gender and sexuality in Post-Mao China, new discourses have emerged about desires and subjectivities that had previously been denied visibility. This thesis takes one such emerging discourse as its focus, the discourse of female homoeroticism in contemporary Chinese literature. The project has three major purposes: (1) to investigate the historical and cultural conditions that have contributed to the emergence of this discourse in the 1990s, an era of profound ideological and cultural change in China, (2) to explore the local and global analyses that contribute to the discourse, and (3) to discuss …

Printshops, Pressmen, And The Poetic Page In Colonial Korea, Wayne De Fremery

Barowsky School of Business | Faculty Scholarship

By analyzing the way vernacular Korean poetry of the 1920s was produced, this article initiates a study of the sociology of Korean literary production. Based on a survey of forty-five vernacular Korean books of poetry produced between 1921 and 1929, bank records, Japanese colonial government records, and printed interviews, the study describes the people, organizations, and technologies involved in the production of vernacular Korean poetry in the early twentieth century. It suggests that a small number of men in a few printing facilities working within restrained typographic conditions were responsible for printing the extant corpus of Korean vernacular poetry from …

Yakuza Past, Present And Future: The Changing Face Of Japan's Organized Crime Syndicates, Silke Higgins

Themis: Research Journal of Justice Studies and Forensic Science

While Japanese crime syndicates are deeply entrenched in the history and culture of Japan, much of what is known in the Western world about the Yakuza is primarily the result of stereotyping generated by media-driven sensationalism and lowbudget motion pictures. Judgment on the crime syndicates' continued existence, modes of operation, and relatively high visibility in Japan is oftentimes passed based on socio-cultural perceptions of deviance that differ from those in Japanese culture. Taking the form of a book review essay, this paper aims to re-introduce the reader to Japan's crime syndicates with the goal of replacing stereotypes and myths with …

The Influences Of The American Boxer Indemnity Reparations Remissions On Chinese Higher Education, Xiaojuan Zhou

Department of Educational Administration: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The purpose of this study was to consider the influences of the American Boxer Indemnity Reparations Remissions (ABIRR) on Chinese higher education. These remissions were used to establish two universities, to establish the American Boxer Indemnity Scholarship Program (ABISP) to support Chinese students’ studying in America, and to support other higher education- related projects.

This study focused on higher education considering ABISP as an individual case. The ABISP students were selected from all the students who studied in America in the corresponding period in part because of the inconsistencies of research before 1949.

Through tracking 1,152 ABISP students of Type …

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 Poetic Education In Academies Of Classical Learning In The Qing Dynasty, Nensheng Cheng

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

In the context of imperial examination, academies of classical learning in the Qing Dynasty could not afford not to stress the techniques of examination-required poetry and regulated prose composition, with some academics teaching technique for composing other forms of poetry. The purpose of turning the coarse writing into the elegant corresponded with the government's aims of promoting noble style in writing so that the technique pursuit of composing poems was not meant to be instrumental for passing the imperial examination only but also nurture the person for the country. To that end, many academies developed methods that focused on the …

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.

The Transformation From Being To Dasein: Agnes Heller's Neo-Marxist Aesthetics As A Breakthrough On Lukács' Theoretical Framework, Qilin Fu

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Agnes Heller's neo-Marxist aesthetics is based on the individual construction of Dasein and the human condition of contingency, and it can be argued as a breakthrough of Lukács' aesthetics of Being. By way of humanist aesthetics, she accomplishes the transformation from the philosophy of consciousness into the selective construction of everyday life. This transformation is doubtlessly a great contribution to postmodernist Marxist aesthetics, and is valuable for both theory and practicum in the era of contemporary socialism and late capitalism or postmodern human condition.

The Connotation And Referent Of Chuanqi In The Study Of Fiction In The Ancient China, Qinghua Wang

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Through a critical examination of the connotation and referent of the term chunaqi (legendary story, literally, "transmission of the strange") in the study of fiction in the ancient China, the paper points out that the term chuanqi in the ancient critical discourse was not a concept of genre but a concept of content and thematic type. When chuanqi is referred to as a genre, it was often called as a then homophonic term zhuanji (biographical record), while chuanqi referred to "a book-length account of an event from the beginning to the end." This term of chunaqi referred to a literary …

The Constructs Of Literary Form And Its Multilateral Relationships, Fan Nan

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Literary form is often regarded as a mythical concept. For a fairly long period of time, literary form is always a suppressed object. Be that as it may, scholars have been making attempts to establish a self-contained system of literary form beyond the dimensions of logos, subjecthood and historical contents. This paper investigates the construction of literary form and its relationships with peripheral elements, especially the relationship between literary form and historical content. History has constantly intervened in the structure of literary form, and the literary content is often rendered as a transitory space between them. In this sense, the …

The Ming-Dynasty Restorative Trend Of The Study Of Qu And The Canonization Of The Yuan-Dynasty-Style Qu, Yun Cheng

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

This paper sorts out the restorative trend in the Ming Dynasty in terms of the respect for, elaboration on and the creation of the style (zun ti, bian ti and chuang ti) and re-interprets its claims such as promoting the orthodox prosody, appreciating the original tonal quality, and emulating the Yuan-Dynasty style. The respect for the style promoted the reception of the Yuan-Dynasty style of Qu (opera) to the mainstream ideology and literary orthodoxies. The elaboration on the style focuses on establishing uniform aesthetic norms for Qu as a literary genre. The creation of a genre as the "new legend" …

The Evolution Of The Verse Of Irregular Lines From The Unregulated To The Regulated Verse With Irregular Lines, Yufeng Xie

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

The lyrics for singing in the ancient Chinese literature, in terms of stylistic form, falls into two types: qiyan (lines of regular lengths) and zayan (lines of irregular lengths). In the early Tang period, Shen Quanqi and Song Zhiwen established the versification of qiyan poetry, while the regulating course of zayan poetry began in the Middle and Late Tang Dynasty. If the unregulated zayan poetry can be defined as Qu (the later opera verse) and the regulated zayan poetry as Ci (fixed rhythm lyrics), the evolution of zayan (the verse with irregular lines) in the past thousand-odd years was following …

The "Central Land Prosody" And The Rise And Fall Of The Musical Verse From The North And The South, Shunhua Li

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Since the Yuan Dynasty when China became a united sovereignty, there appeared various new prosodic systems. Zhou Deqing (1277-1365) made great efforts to dismiss The Broad Rimes (guangyun, compiled from 1007 to 1008 under the auspices of Emperor Zhenzong of the Song Dynasty) and to construct a new prosodic system based on the musical verse from the northern part of China so as to promote it into the system of "the Central Land Elegant Prosody (zhongyun yayun)." He claimed that the orthodox prosody should be in the Music Bureau verse from the North while the verse from the South was …