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    25 July 2021, Volume 41 Issue 4 Previous Issue    Next Issue
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    A Study of Socialist Discourse System with Chinese Characteristics & Issue in Focus: Commemorating the 140th Anniversary of the Birth of Lu Xun
    A Study of Little John and the Making of Quasi-Middle Lu Xun
    Zhu Chongke, Liang Liping
    2021, 41 (4):  1-8. 
    Abstract ( 449 )   PDF (1406KB) ( 242 )  
    The Chinese version of Frederik van Eeden’s Little John translated by Lu Xun was published in 1928, twenty-two years after Luxun embarked on his literary life, and the influence of this work on Luxun went much far more than a pure translation job. The works in Wild Grass, Dawn Blossoms Plucked at Dusk, and Old Tales Retold by quasi-middle Luxun are directly related with Little John in terms of style, thematic concerns, representations of scene, and fields of imagination. However, despite the influences, Luxun’s works had developed their own characteristics and demonstrated the intellectual depth and poetic charm of the National Spirit.
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    Natural History and the "Scientific Discourse Community" of the Three Zhou Brothers
    Liao Jianrong
    2021, 41 (4):  9-16. 
    Abstract ( 280 )   PDF (1379KB) ( 170 )  
    As the mainstream of modern science, natural history has developed from Foucauldian epistemological discourse to the important discourse of “scientific discourse community,” which has become the basis of legitimacy for a new culture and new thought that promoted the New Culture Movement. As the scientific discourse of the three Zhou brothers, natural history influenced Lu Xun’s (Zhou Shuren) “saving the nation through science” and “biological truth”, Zhou Zuoren’s “biological reference” and “naturalization of ethics”, as well as Zhou Jianren's “national evolution” and related ideas of new culture. Zhou Brothers' scientific discourse of natural history witnessed the unremitting exploration of Chinese intellectuals to join in the “scientific discourse community” in order to establish new culture and new ideas to enlighten the people and save the nation. It not only revealed the deep relationship between “Mr. Democracy” and “Mr. Science” in the New Cultural Movement, but also represented an important development in the history of modern Chinese thought, literature, and science.
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    On Death and Hope in Lu Xun's "Upstairs in the Tavern"
    Zhang Hong
    2021, 41 (4):  17-27. 
    Abstract ( 813 )   PDF (1799KB) ( 312 )  
    Lu Xun’s short story “Upstairs in the Tavern” brings to a new phase the problematic of soul in the modern man, which is first addressed in his “New Year Sacrifice”. Through the reunion between the narrator “I” and his old friend Lü Weifu in the tavern, the problematic of soul in modern intellectuals resurfaces. Lü, a modern rationalist, was exposed to two events of death, which shook the ground of his materialistic view of life, making him feel sinking and bored as love and hopes were shattered. This is also the fundamental theme of Lu Xun’s works during the period when his anthology Wandering was completed.
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    Ancient Literary Theory and Theoretical Study of Ancient Literature
    The Significance of Concept Differentiation
    Chen Dakang
    2021, 41 (4):  28-39. 
    Abstract ( 516 )   PDF (1801KB) ( 190 )  
    Concept is a fundamental element in literary studies, and concept differentiation may influence the content, methods and judgment of the studies. This article discusses three kinds of concept uses, which determine the research direction, value estimation and time connotation, and further expounds on the significance of concept differentiation.
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    “Writers Should Learn Philology First”: The Genesis of a Common Sense in Literature
    Lin Feng
    2021, 41 (4):  40-50. 
    Abstract ( 599 )   PDF (1804KB) ( 193 )  
    “Writer should learn philology first” was first presented by the Tang writer official Han Yu (768-824), and became an influential proposition of literature in the Qing dynasty. Qing textualists’ effectively reinterpretation of it enabled the proposition to become a classic statement to demonstrate philology’s importance to literary creation, and the position gradually developed into a common sense recognized by various literary schools in the late Qing period and finally entered the literary history and textbooks during the Republican period. To describe the course of how the proposition emerged, disseminated and developed into a common sense will illuminate the understanding of Qing textualists’ contribution to literature, the relationship between literary theories in the Qing and previous dynasties, and the formation mechanism of common sense in the history of Chinese literature.
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    Views on Yuefu among Literati in the Song Dynasty and Volumes of Yuefu in Their Collected Works: A Case Study of Wen Tong’s Yuefu Zayong
    Liang Haiyan
    2021, 41 (4):  51-58. 
    Abstract ( 298 )   PDF (1766KB) ( 152 )  
    Wen Tong’s Yuefu Zayong from Collected Works of Danyuan demonstrated his art of yuefu with old titles. Using the old titles from yuefu poems of the Han, Wei, and Six dynasties, the poet paid special attention to guci (extant lyrics of yuefu before the Song dynasty), benshi (content of yuefu, namely, historical legends and folk tales) and historical situations that gave rise to tunes, which were all his sources of inspiration. Some of his works featured deliberately unpolished simplicity, following the poetic ideal promoted by such intellectual movement as fugu (return to the ancients), while some featured elaborate depiction and ingenious structure. Instead of being juxtaposed with gexing poems with new titles, the volume of Yuefu Zayong was independently compiled, which manifested his contemporaries’ consciousness of inheriting and passing on the old style of yuefu. Further, in his re-compilation of Collected Works of Danyuan, Jia Chengzhi put Yuefu Zayong forward, which indicated the Song literary scholars’ new understanding of the significance and value of the old genre of yuefu. Considering other volumes of poetry titled yuefu in literati’s collected works in the Song dynasty, this article maintains that the Song people had multiple and dynamic understanding of yuefu.
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    On Liu Yin’s Idea of “Relaxing in the Study of Cultural Arts” and Literary Thoughts
    Yang Wanli
    2021, 41 (4):  59-69. 
    Abstract ( 380 )   PDF (2711KB) ( 145 )  
    Liu Yin (1249—1293), a Neo-Confucian scholar in the early Yuan dynasty, had achievements not only in the Neo Confucianism, but also in literature, calligraphy, painting, zither and chess. He proposed  the concept that “arts are fundamental practices”, and for the first time compared literature and arts to the “six arts” in the ancient times, enhancing the status of arts in Neo-Confucianism. In his practice of cultural arts, Liu connected the thought of “observing things” with the spirit of “acquiring knowledge through observations of things”. Furthermore, he expressed a desire for secluded life in the artistic world, showing a relaxed attitude towards art. He thought that painting should unite form and spirit, and calligraphy should follow the example of the ancients. While these embodied Liu Yin's artistic aesthetics, his ultimate purport pointed to “naturalness”. Liu Yin’s consciousness of his identity as a Neo-Confucian scholar and an artist was clearly displayed through his efforts to investigate things and to relax in arts. It can be seen that the Neo-Confucian scholars in the Yuan dynasty were more enthusiastic about literature and art. As a result, a large number of literary and artistic works and theories were reserved. They inculcated the field of literature and art with Neo-Confucian way of thought and value more deeply, influencing the trend of literary and artistic thought in the Yuan dynasty. Therefore, painting and calligraphy should be included in the explorations of the Neo-Confucian phenomenon of “flowing into literature”.
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    The Literati Identification of Wang Shizhen and Its Significance
    Xiong Xiang
    2021, 41 (4):  70-80. 
    Abstract ( 320 )   PDF (1430KB) ( 205 )  
    Wang Shizhen (1526-1590) had a strong reaction to the stigmatic identification of literati. Wang’s stance towards literati transformed gradually from a critique on “literati being impractical” to the lament for literati's fate as well as an appeal to sympathy for literati among his peers. Faced with the claim that literati were not virtuous, he emphasized that literary talent should be the inherent measurement in identifying literati. This idea was distinctive from the view of Tang Shunzhi (1507-1560), and the theory of emotion. Wang Shizhen’s literati identification and consciousness of community were driven by the intertwining but also conflicting constellations of literature, Neo-Confucianism and philosophy of mind in the political contexts from Jiajing (1522-1566) to Wanli (1573-1620). Wang’s views were representative of the discursive confrontation after the personality model which integrated morality, politics and articles was broken. His views also became an important node in the intellectual development of “emphasis on literariness” in Ming Dynasty; and revealed the inevitability of the literati going to the local and into the lower classes.
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    Western Literary Theory and Aesthetics Studies
    Literature’s Loss of Status? Which Status? Whose Status?
    Helena Carvalhão Buescu
    2021, 41 (4):  81-88. 
    Abstract ( 314 )   PDF (1379KB) ( 117 )  
    Humanities’ loss of symbolic status and, most especially, literature’s loss of symbolic status have, in the last decades, been stated, and frequently overstated. The pessimistic position is to consider that there will be no way back – as if we were at the famous “end of history” that Fukuyama thought to have foreseen with the end of the Berlin wall and the pivotal historical moment lived in its wake. I propose to look at this question with a deeper historical insight, taking into consideration that status (either gained or lost) is always a matter of perspective, of position, and of the nature of the encyclopedia that we as observers and readers culturally tackle. I therefore discuss the nature of the supposed loss of status, to underline that it is an heritage of the understanding of literature as first and foremost an expression of a nation. If we take alternative stances, however, the nature of the question we are discussing interestingly differs. I then proceed to discuss “forms of belonging” as crucial to the understanding of the symbolic nature of literature and the Humanities, by stressing that losses are always transformations; that we should take into account the distinction between knowledge and cultural capital (Jeffrey Adams); and that we are surrounded by practical fields in which this distinction and its consequences are played for us to understand them. In my view, then, we should relativise all the “ends” and “deaths” that have plagued our field, which have led to the idea that literature is condemned to be just a cultural and symbolic loss, or marker of a doomed past.
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    Theory and Philosophy: Antonyms in Our Semantic Field?
    Martin Jay
    2021, 41 (4):  89-97. 
    Abstract ( 278 )   PDF (1771KB) ( 177 )  
    Building on the argument of a 1996 piece called "For Theory," which situated "theory" in a force field of its putative opposite terms, this essay explores the way "philosophy" has come to be considered an antonym of "theory" in much contemporary discourse. It argues that despite their often contrasting meanings and connotations, the two terms would benefit from a dialogue in which the strengths of each were acknowledged without their being either hierarchically positioned or turned into bland synonyms.
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    Feminist Perspectives on Gender and the Sublime
    Chen Rong
    2021, 41 (4):  98-108. 
    Abstract ( 389 )   PDF (1420KB) ( 187 )  
    The paper reinterprets the conceptual history of sublime theory from a feminist perspective. Besides exposing the deep imprint of patriarchal discourse in the classical version of the sublime, contemporary feminists make great efforts to remold the aesthetical category to incorporate the female experiences, subjectivity and ethics. Therefore, the concept of the sublime enjoys an expansion to include possibilities of transgressing borders, embracing emotion, upholding heterogeneity and advocating intersubjectivity. This is the new dynamic that feminism brings to the theoretical field of sublime aesthetics.
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    Deleuze’s Affect Theory and Becoming-Literature
    Ge Yue
    2021, 41 (4):  109-116. 
    Abstract ( 1175 )   PDF (1383KB) ( 298 )  
    Despite the multi-disciplinary scholarly attention it has drawn, affect theory is subject to various contestations. An in-depth examination of Spinoza’s and Deleuze’s respective theory of affect reveals that Spinoza’s concept of affect is a reflection upon the passive reactions of the body and mind, whereas Deleuze de-contextualizes the concept of affect so as to construct an approach to breaking down the power discipline and restoring the potentials of life. Deleuze opines that symbols are the primary vehicle for power transfer. From the perspective of “affect”, he captures multiple effective ways of power disintegration in the field of literature, creatively proposes the theory of becoming-literature, and brings literary creation into the field of political struggle.
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    “Asked of Everyone as if a Duty”: On Immanuel Kant’s Question about the Idea of a Common Sense
    Chen Chen
    2021, 41 (4):  117-128. 
    Abstract ( 212 )   PDF (1435KB) ( 137 )  
    “Whence the feeling in the judgment of taste is asked of everyone as if a duty” is a question that Kant asked at the end of Section 40 of Critique of Judgment. The answer to this question is related to one’s understanding of the relationship between two parts that are ostensibly irrelevant – Sections 31-40 and Sections 41-42 of “Deduction of Judgments of Taste”. Although scholars raised numerous explanations to unite these two parts and to interpret the latter part, they have not reached an agreement due to the difficulty in understanding Kant’s question. In order to solve this problem, it is necessary to return to the original context of Kant, and to clarify the necessity of the question on account of the distinction between the possibility of the necessity of the feeling in the judgment of taste and its actuality. Through new understanding of this question, we can then revisit Sections 41-42 and investigate the two possible answers Kant raised, explaining that Kant’s solution to this problem is “morality” in Section 42 rather than “sociability” in Section 41.
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    From Commitment to Uselessness: On Georges Bataille’s Concept of Literature
    Zhao Tianshu
    2021, 41 (4):  129-137. 
    Abstract ( 374 )   PDF (1766KB) ( 209 )  
    This article aims to analyze George Bataille’s concept of literature by comparing it with Jean-Paul Sartre’s opposite view of committed literature. Sartre considered commitment to the world as core of literature, requiring literature to serve society, convey meaning, and advance the progress of society and history. In response to Sartre’s view, Bataille argued that literature is useless. He recognized literature as a sovereign activity of expenditure and argued that it should only present the unknown of the world, which sheds light on unemployed negativity as the core of literature. In this sense, Bataille’s concept is a reflection on modernity. Literature, as a resistant and negative force against society and history, shows a characteristic of uselessness. Yet, this uselessness is not a negation of everything. In contrast, it is a way to contemplate human existence at a more profound level, in order to liberate human subjectivity from alienation.
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    Early Reading Theories of Louis Althusser and the Misjudgment of Surface Reading
    Zhou Jianzeng
    2021, 41 (4):  138-149. 
    Abstract ( 309 )   PDF (1426KB) ( 150 )  
    There are three reading theories in Louis Althusser’s early works: intuitive reading, expressive reading, and symptomatic reading. Intuitive reading puts emphasis on the intuitiveness of the mind towards given content, which tends to make the text transparent and shallow. The second is the theory of expressive reading, which stresses the revelation of a single meaning on the surface of the text through rational thinking, insisting on an exclusive and closed distinction between surface and depth. Symptomatic reading promotes a dialectical thinking that analyzes the dual content hidden beneath the textual surface in pursuit of an open adjoining distinction between surface and depth. Among these three reading theories, symptomatic reading is a result of critique on intuitive reading and expressive reading, which embodies the progressiveness and reflectiveness in Althusser’s early reading theories. The recent scholarly criticism of surface reading on symptomatic reading based on the surface/depth distinction, however, is an oversimplifying misjudgment that fails to capture its core significance. Such misjudgment is grounded in Fredric Jameson’s neglect of the difference between expression and symptom. An analysis of the relationship among intuitive reading, expressive reading, and symptomatic reading contributes to a thorough understanding of Althusser’s early reading theories, their variations and misreading of these theories in the process of reception.
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    Modern and Contemporary Literary Theory and Cultural Studies
    The Image of Characters in Twentieth-Century Chinese Fiction
    Xu Zidong
    2021, 41 (4):  150-159. 
    Abstract ( 473 )   PDF (2318KB) ( 101 )  
    Scholars generally believe that the most important characters in modern Chinese literature are intellectuals and peasants, and their relationship is central to the literary theme of “reforming national character”. However, in the late Qing Dynasty and contemporary fictions, officials become the third important image of characters. The complicated triangular relationship between intellectuals, peasants and officials in fictions is since formed. If the relationship between intellectuals and peasants can be summarized as “enlightenment and national salvation”, the process of “mutual transformation” between intellectuals and officials in twentieth-century Chinese fictions and the historical evolution of the “contradictory and interdependent” relationship between peasants and officialdom also need to be described separately on their own terms.
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    The Modern Origin of Animation and the Intermediality of Animation Art
    Feng Xueqin
    2021, 41 (4):  160-167. 
    Abstract ( 333 )   PDF (2289KB) ( 327 )  
    Giannaberto Bendazzi, an Italian historian of animation, believes that Emile Cohl and his Fantasmagorie are the origins of animation art. Bendazzi’s view is problematic as he considered the origins of animation and film share the same genealogy, ignoring the significant differences on media basis. From the perspective of intermediality of art, Emile Reynaud’s Luminous Pantomimes presents the media difference between animation and film, representing a heterogeneous origin of animation in the modern era. Analyses of this origin will provide an insight into the ontology of animation, which is a cross-media art.
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    Shock and Immersion: The Complex Aesthetic Experience of Chinese New Mainstream Film
    Lu Xiaofang
    2021, 41 (4):  168-177. 
    Abstract ( 273 )   PDF (2308KB) ( 171 )  
    The new mainstream cinema in China, instead of providing a simple mixture or hybrid of artistic styles and genres, advocates that audiovisual spectacles created by film technologies should “break into” the established experience of audiences and their customary protective mechanism of consciousness so as to produce a psychological strike. Meanwhile, new mainstream cinema also creates an aesthetic experience, through which the audience are drawn deeply into the film thanks to their surrealistic sensory and emotional engagement. The surrealistic sensory experience brings “shock” to the audience, while emotional identification results in “immersion”. Provided with such aesthetic effects, the new mainstream film, aspiring to spread positive energy through the holistic conceptualization of the state and nation, also finds the greatest denominator among all aesthetic characteristics—thus aesthetic values of universal significance—to unite the broadest cinematic audience. Through fusion of genres as well as intersection between the unreal and the real, it ultimately provides the audience with complex experience that collapses their established and obstinate conceptualizations.
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    Studies of Art Theory
    The Establishment of Modern Art Law of “Do Whatever You Want” and the Reconstruction of Pan-Art Category: Case Study of the Ready-Made Works of Marcel Duchamp
    Xiao Weisheng
    2021, 41 (4):  178-187. 
    Abstract ( 278 )   PDF (1398KB) ( 187 )  
    The ready-made works of Marcel Duchamp made it impossible to define art, which actually implied the possibility of “artistic freedom.” This was the new artistic principle determined by the ready-made, a principle that has established the modern art law “do whatever you want.” This law makes art a judicial precedent” event. It only stipulates a form consistent with the universal, so its judgment is a reflective aesthetic judgment. By restoring the tradition of pan-art, Duchamp brought language art back into the category of fine art so that paintings once again served the human thought. This particular strategy of returning to the ancient times resulted from the spiritual baptismal of Nietzsche, Max Stirner and Greek philosophy, as well as the illumination by such writers as Stéphane Mallarmé, Raymond Roussel and Jules Laforgue. It was in this way that Duchamp created many of the most original ready-made works of the 20th century.
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    Ideas of Photography Studies in France: Reflections on Three Contemporary Paradigms
    Lu Yichen
    2021, 41 (4):  188-196. 
    Abstract ( 308 )   PDF (2683KB) ( 146 )  
    The ideas of photography, different from photography, are constituted by a network of concepts that emerges out of its dissemination and reception, and features the regularity of the indicative discourses of photography as a practice and an image. The shift from photography to the concept of photography is not only a change in concepts, but also one in photographic historiography. This shift constantly questions and deconstructs the traditional history of photography, whose models closely follow technical progress or the beautiful images produced by great photographers, emphasizing the spectators/recipients of the photographic image that were marginalized in the mainstream history of photography. Within François Brunet’s theoretical framework of history of the concepts of photography, this article revisits the three cognitive paradigms of photography proposed by Paul Edwards, Philippe Dubois, and Roland Barthes, in order to delineate a network that constitute the concepts of photography and to explore a new way to think about photography.
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    The Perceptional Foundation of Impressionism
    Li Haiyan
    2021, 41 (4):  197-205. 
    Abstract ( 299 )   PDF (1756KB) ( 149 )  
    As a revolutionary painting school, impressionists develop a special plane configuration that deserves phenomenological description and critical reflection over the philosophical assumptions behind it. Impressionists claim to represent impressions as they are, so it strictly restricts the object to be represented within the field of the physical world, and in the process of painting, they try to remove all the processing activities that are external to the original impression and to use separate color blocks and rough brushstrokes so that they may represent the instant impression in the picture. By analyzing this plain configuration, this article explores the special concept of impression postulated by the Impressionists, which is, behind the passive point stimulation on the retina of the reflected light with subjective factors completely removed, there have assumed the relationship of atomic separation between the subject and object, as well as the sense-data theory. As a representative of post-impressionism, Paul Cézanne reflected on the difficulties encountered by this theoretical assumption of impressionism. By restoring the stable structure of the represented object, Cézanne attempted to present a more primitive perceptional relationship between the painter and the represented object in the picture.
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    Triple Dimensions of the “Temporal Turn”: Theories of “Contemporaneity” in Western Contemporary Art and Their Problems
    Dong Lihui
    2021, 41 (4):  206-218. 
    Abstract ( 936 )   PDF (1830KB) ( 137 )  
    In recent years, contemporaneity, a term with specific and changing connotations, has stirred up continuing debates in the West, as part of the attempt to theorize contemporary art. Although these theories have different ways of argument focusing on different aspects, discussions on contemporaneity are all based on the Latin word tempor, which means time, with an attempt to escape from the modern concept of time and to launch a contemporary “temporal turn”. Among these theories, Giorgio Agamben, Boris Groys and Peter Osborne’s arguments exemplify three typical approaches to explore the “temporal turn”, and they claim that contemporaneity lies in its anachronism with time, within the time flow, or in the virtuality extracted from the juxtaposition of multiple present times. The “temporal turn” is pivotal to understand the term contemporaneity as used in the Western context, and delineating the representative approaches is the essential for discussing the theory of contemporaneity in the field of contemporary art.
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