Welcome to Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art,

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art ›› 2016, Vol. 36 ›› Issue (5): 90-98.

• Issue in Focus: Studies on Media Literary Theory • Previous Articles     Next Articles

From Saturday to the "Saturday School": A Discussion on the "New/old" Debate in the Early 1920s

Luo Meng   

  1. the School of Humanities, Shanghai Jiaotong University (Shanghai 200240, China)
  • Online:2016-09-25 Published:2017-09-30
  • About author:Luo Meng, Ph.D., is a post-doctoral fellow in the School of Humanities, Shanghai Jiaotong University (Shanghai 200240, China). Her research focuses on modern Chinese literature, popular literature and culture.

Abstract: This article sheds light on the sharp confrontation between New Culture intellectuals and the popular literati from 1921 to 1923. As a key word, the term "Saturday School" is derived from Saturday, an influential popular periodical in early Republican Shanghai. And in fact, the production process of "Saturday School" was intensely bound up with the "new/old" debate in modern Chinese literary history. Based on close reading of historical material and contextual analysis, the article concludes that the debate between "new" and "old" was concerned more with the competition over the discourse power of defining "what is new", which directly led to the control of "symbolic capital" of the era. Additionally, popular literati's experiences of the debate in the early 1920s gave them the motivation for self-positioning and self-presentation.

Key words: "new-old" debate, popular literature, New Culture; Saturday, "Saturday School"