Welcome to Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art,

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art ›› 2015, Vol. 35 ›› Issue (3): 51-60.

• Modern and Contemporary Literary Theory and Criticism • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Modernist Imagination of Space and the Hardship of Returning Home: An Investigation Centered on the Literature of Minority Nationalities in Contemporary China

Li Changzhong
  

  1. Fuyang Teachers College
  • Online:2015-05-25 Published:2015-07-10
  • About author:Li Changzhong, D.litt., is a professor in Fuyang Teachers College, with academic interests in contemporary literary theory and literary criticism.

Abstract: The capacity of cultural bearing of the minority nationalities in China is relatively weak, their ecological environment relatively fragile, and vehicles of cultural heritage relative scarce, which contributes to the two-sided problem comprising of existential and cultural spaces. These spaces are gradually invaded in the process of modernization by the foreigners who, as the cultural Other, have not only contaminated the aboriginal space of existence with their physical presence but also undermined the indigenous cultural tradition through their representation. The imagination of the Other's space helps confirm the construction of selfhood, but the question "where is home" becomes the modernist anxiety for the minority nationalities communities. In the dual anxiety consisting of the modernist imagination of the Other's space and the search of homeland, the literatures of these nationalities display their local aesthetics and cultural spirit, and they have also enriched Chinese literature as a multi-national entity in the current context of de-territorialization and homogeneity.

Key words: space, literature of minority nationality, homeland, the Other