“Anti-order” is an important theoretical category in Chinese traditional culture, often compared with the category of “fro-order.” As the categories of “anti-order” and “fro-order” develop, two value orientations are formed in the process, that is, the orientation that favors “fro-order” over “anti-order” and that puts more merit on “anti-order” than “fro-order.” The preference to “anti-order” has exerted greater influence and given rise to the concept of “anti-order writing” in theoretical criticism of classical Chinese literature. It is a common aesthetic aspiration in literary criticism of the Qing Dynasty that values the “anti-order.” The Tongcheng school, for instance, makes detailed comments on the use of the “anti-order writing” through anthologies and commentaries to emphasize its important meaning. Their creative interpretation by means of metaphor enriches the criticism of the anti-order writing. Tongcheng scholars’ criticism of anti-order writing is a concrete reflection of their literary thought. Moreover, their works not only reflect the profound understanding of Tongcheng school’s creative view on anti-order writing, but also embody the mindset of favoring the aesthetics of twists over smoothness.

In the 1940s, Hu Feng proposed a theory of “subjective fighting spirit” for the writing of realistic fiction. This article suggests that this theory implies a political agenda, which should be understood in the cultural politics of China in the 1940s. The divergence of his views towards contemporary Chinese society and its culture from that of the CCP accounts for his disagreement with Mao's vision of a new culture. It is a competition for cultural hegemony with the Party in the field of cultural production.

The history of poetry in Yuan dynasty is usually divided into three periods. In the early Yuan period, the poetic style of late Tang dynasty and late Song dynasty was prevalence. In the middle-Yuan period, the high Tang style was emulated, as was represented by the so-called the Four Great Yuan Poets who were officials and served in the court. Yang Weizhen, an influential poet in late Yuan dynasty for his poetics, however, advocated the Six-Dynasty poetry as well as the works of Li Po, Li Ho, Tao Yuanming, Wei Yingwu, Liu Zongyuan, Du fu, Li Shangyin, etc. Yang Weizhen and his followers were active in southeast China, not in the officialdom. They emulated the mid-Tang poetry, and contributed to the transition toward the style of the airs and the hymns in The Book of Poetry as they also admired the Music Bureau Poetry and advocated the implicit diction commonly known as the strategy of writing The Spring and Autumn Annals.

The minor-Asiatic background enabled Apollo to take on multiple identities in the reconstruction process of Greek myths. Appolo's image was initially displaced and equated with the Sun-God Helios. The Sun-God in Homer and Hesiod' works was still Helios while Apollo was the god of hunting, medicine and music (the god of literature and art). The Histories of Herodotus excluded Helios from the main twelve gods of Olympus, and made the young god Appolo take a higher position in heaven. Tragedy playwrights before 500 BC. called Apollo the Sun-God, regarding his oracles as the moira which cannot be altered or resisted. In Hellenic age, the position of Apollo as the Sun-God was unshakable. In the literatures of Miletus school and Socrates, Apollo is turned into the god of reason. This paper tries to delineate how the initially alien god Apollo, with an initially alien background, takes place the former Sun-God Helios during the reconstruction process, to examine what sociocultural features the transformation of Apollo's identities demonstrate during different periods in ancient Greek history, and to explore what significances the remaking of the Apollo myth implies for Greek tragedies, history and philosophy.

The classical Chinese aesthetics that French sinologist François Jullien tries to construct is centered on such notions as plain (la fadeur), non-objet, désontologie, and l'immanence. In so doing, Jullien aims to give Europe an access to  "l'impensé" via Chinese aesthetics. However, his endeavour presents itself to be more like a derivative of post-structuralist  theories of Foucault and Deleuze and an invention than a reliable representation of China. On the fundamental level, Jullien's views of Chinese thought follows those of Hegel and Max Weber. Although he tries to reexamine Hegel's negative comments on China, his seemingly exquisite discussions fail to rectify the stereotyical notion of European Sinology. Meanwhile, Jullien values the Heideggerian concept of "the undifferentiated basis prior to the realization of form," which has a non-interventional and non-political import. Despite this philosophical ambition, Jullien fails to reach out to reflecting contemporary socio-political problems and therefore his aesthetic construction entails questions in terms of its relevance to current politics.

 As transmedia storytelling prevails， narrative gradually becomes an art of world-building. A storyworld is an expandable fantasy world aroused by narration. The construction of a storyworld involves precise creation， continuous expansion， and narrative coherence. A storyworld， following the principle of “fantastic realism，” normally consists of a long history， current events， and shared values. Such a world unfolds thanks to the shift of the characters' point of view， the expansion of the space， and the generational developments， three devices used in the narrative like three “searchlights” in the exploration of an unknown world. The popularization of the storyworld is underlined by the rise of a “re-enchanting” world as a result of the dissatisfaction with the society of “disenchantment” and the desire for the resurgence of fantasy. With imminent threats and pressing missions， “re-enchantment” suggests a turbulent and imaginary world， where the participants of the re-enchanting storyworlds manage to escape from the daily life， search for meaning， and establish a sense of identity.

Pu Songling recounted how ancient scholars made a living in his Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, and the means fell into the following categories: home school tutoring, copying books, making paintings and calligraphic works, and doing business. These practices reflected the social reality of the scholars’ life in the Qing Dynasty. The idea behind these practices in the Qing Dynasty was influenced by Xu Heng’s claim that “the primary task of a scholar is to make a living” in the Yuan Dynasty, and the idea underlay the scholars’ practice of making a living in the Ming-Qing dynasties while the need to make a living also reflected the difficult living conditions of the lower class scholars. Pu Songling and his father’s practice of making a living prompted him to pay attention to the social phenomenon and recounted how scholars’ made a living and what social ecology the low-class scholars were confronted, while Pu’s own practice of making a living allowed him to imbue the stories with some unique nuances.

Theology is one of the core issues of Benjamin's philosophy. Even after the completion of the Marxist turn, Benjamin is still trying to transform the potential of theology with "profane illumination". The sustained attention for origin and truth, and the desire for the redemption of the Messiah, are revealing his theological attitude. At the same time, Benjamin also tries to examine the tension between modernity and theology. In Benjamin's philosophy, the tension in the structure of the Messianic time is not only the entrance for the reflection of modernity, but also the power source of history itself.

Li Linfu, prime minister of the Xuanzong period of the Tang dynasty, was in charge of state affairs for two decades and was a notorious culprit in the decline of the state. As a cunning and crude official, Li was particularly hostile to the literati. One important reason was his failed attempt to crown Prince Li Mao, as Prince Li Heng became heir to the throne with the support of the literati. Li Linfu’s scheme to overthrow the crowned Prince Li Heng continuously encountered resistance from the literati represented by Zhang Jiuling. Viewing the literati as his political opponents, Li thus crudely attacked those with high political positions and disregarded those from middle and low ranks. He also controlled the entire system of official election. Despite Li’s so-called administrative ability, his play of power endangered the political ecology of the state. His conduct not only caused serious damage to the poetic circle during the prosperous period of the Tang dynasty, but also changed the life and career of numerous poets.

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 over-emphasis on the Kantian notion of the sublime, Zhu seemed to have neglected those tragic works that depict the passive suffering of ordinary men and women. As to the three classic German philosophers, Zhu Guangqian rejected both Hegel's theory of universal justice for being too optimistic and Schopenhauer's theory of resignation for being too pessimistic. Zhu's overall outlook on life and his aesthetic theory in particular find a close ally in Nietzsche who combined the ideas of his two German predecessors. Nietzsche, of course, erred miserably in his pronouncement on the death of tragedy in ancient Greece, and this had a negative impact on Zhu Guangqian in his own elaborations of the subject. Nevertheless, their similar effort to connect tragic art with cultural values constituted a great inspiration to later scholars.

In the sixth year of Wanli Reign in the Ming Dynasty (1578), based on Mao Zhifang’s Great Achievement of the Shilian Poetics and Lin Zhen’s Great Achievement of the Lianxin Shibei Poetics in the Yuan Dynasty, The Great Achievement of Ancient and Modern Poetics was published and exerted great impact in the literary world. It not only was adapted into a variety of reading primers for poetic enlightenment, but also became an immediate reference for the compilation of fictional works such as the Selected Works of Ancient and Modern Grotesque Stories and Youguai Shitan. It deeply influenced the development of the genre of legendary fiction in the Ming Dynasty. First, it enabled poetry to enter fiction in large numbers, generating a narrative form with poetry as its skeleton. Secondly, it made the fictional characters more functional and symbolic. Finally, the book embodied the view that fiction could work as play and attach great importance to the concept of fiction. The Great Achievement of Ancient and Modern Poetics re-created the Selected Works of Ancient and Modern Grotesque Stories and Youguai Shitan as a collective work of poems, poetics, and poetic remarks. It also served as a criticism of poetry, a teaching of practical poem writing, and a fictional narrative. In short, it embodied the dual value of poetics and fiction. The book was at once a showcase of its author’s talent and the result of the development of the concept of fiction in the Ming Dynasty.

As an influential thinker and public intellectual, Martha Nussbaum is distinguished in the field of philosophy by her great passion for literature and arts. She not only brings to the fore literary imagination/narrative in intellectual discussions, but also inherits and develops such classical idea as “the alliance of poetry and ethics” in the contemporary context. She has effectively explored the contribution literature has made in response to the ethical question as to “How should one live?” In her explication of the literary ethics, Nussbaum refers to the value of literary ethics in two respective dimensions, “perception” and “therapy,” which not only reflects the inner tension and complexity of her literary view, but also underlines the problem and predicament of contemporary literary theories of liberalism. As John Gray would have it, the “two faces of liberalism” is remarkably presented within Nussbaum’s theories. 

After finishing Black Square, the foundation for pure abstract art, Kazimir Malevich sought to further consolidate and develop the connotation of suprematism, using the “zero of form” as a core principle to deepen his metaphysical thinking about color. In his theoretical writings and artistic practice from 1915 to 1920, Malevich developed the concept of artistic evolution, namely “three stages of suprematism” (black–red–white), endowing each stage with a corresponding motivation (economy–revolution–pure action). Malevich saw White on White, which contained universal utopian ideas, as the final stage of Hegel's evolutionary view of history, in which the concepts were integrated into a purely unified form and became self-contained, corresponding to what Malevich referred to as the “unified world architectural system on Earth” or the “post-historical” era of art. Combining Arthur Danto's declaration of the “end of art”, painting has come to an end in the narrative level in White on White, where both form and color are “transformed into zero,” and the interpretation of artistic concepts turn into the interpretation of philosophical concepts. However, abstract art has entered a diversified era in the theoretical atmosphere of the “art world,” and the “emptiness” of abstract art has the potential to continue to nurture or generate new connotations and ideas. The “end of art” in the context of suprematism emphasizes the “liberation” of art in the dual sense of aesthetic and social values, which is closely related to the aesthetics of the Russian Silver Age.

Calling melody as pai first appeared in the middle of the Ming dynasty, which is a fascinating phenomenon in Chinas cultural history. Paiming was a term particularly used by scholars in the Ming and Qing dynasties, whose original meaning represented the names in card games. As the use of terms in card games and classical melody tended to be similar, the names of cards were adopted as the names of melody during drinking games. Cipai and qupai were derivative words of paiming, which became popular at a later time. The primary cause for this phenomenon was the need for expression. As specific nouns to represent the melody of drama were absent, the term qupai was more readily accepted. The introduction of cipai into the study of ci-poetry resulted from the fact that “the melody of ci-poetry” could also refer to musical mode. The term pai can better express the stylistic characteristics of ci and qu genres.

Ihab Hassan is a pioneer and key figure in the theoretical debate on postmodernism in the late half of the twentieth Century. In a relative stagnant period of literary criticism theory, he surveys various types of pioneer literature, proposes for the first time the theory of postmodernism, and elaborates on the characteristics and theoretical implications of postmodernism. He extends the theory of postmodernism further to the fields of culture and philosophy, and with it his influence has also spread from the United States to Europe and other parts of the world. Hassan defines the fundamental characteristics of postmodernism as "indetermanence." After exploring the complex relationships of the continuity and discontinuity between modernism, avantgarde and postmodernism, he puts forward the concept of "paracriticism." Hassan's contributions to the theory of postmodernism lie mainly in proposing, defining, propagating and practicing the theory of postmodernism．

"French theory" is another expression for the post-structuralist thought in France, with Foucault's theory of discourse being the most influential, and constructivism lies at the core of the theory. On the one hand, the theory of discourse highlights the function discourse performs in constructing subjectivity and the reality; on the other hand, it aims to reveal the symbiotic relation between the power and knowledge behind discourse. Thus, the theory dissolves the cognitive agency of the subject while foregrounding the subject's construction of discourse, and it highlights the representational practice of discourse while forecloses the social material practice of the non-discourse. The theory of discourse focuses on textual analysis and displays a tendency of "discourse fetish", but it fails to reveal any anti-discursive approach. The theory of discourse is a noteworthy recent trend in knowledge production, and it has its demerits, which could be exposed through the reflection on and critique of this theory and improved to gain more interpretative validity through the integration between this theory and other theories.

 The concept of “Uber-Marionette,” proposed by the British theatre practitioner Gordon Craig, is a metaphor for an ideal performer whose body has a purely “corporeal/material” quality. In contrast, the body of Cyber “Uber-Marionette,” represented by virtual idols in digital time-space, is a kind of disembodied information body. The evolution of the body landscape from “Uber-Marionette” to Cyber “Uber-Marionette” marks a transition from substantialist views on the body, inherited and developed by Gordon Craig, to cybernetic views on the body in the age of “posthumanism”. This transformation has not only brought about a profound change in the paradigm of existence of the performer's body but has also virtualized the body of the audience and shaken the performer-spectator relationship. In order to respond to the challenges posed by the Cyber “Uber-Marionette” as a kind of disembodied “hyperhuman,” the human performer, rather than retrogressing into the state of “prehuman” implied by the image of “Uber-Marionette”, must evolve into a kind of embodied “posthuman” whose strengthened body coexists with technology.

The canonization of A New Account of the Tales of the World (Shishuo Xinyu) is attributed to its publication and circulation by literati in the Southern Song dynasty. Existing studies have generally been focused on three editions of this book, namely the block-printed editions by Dong Fen, Lu You, Zhang Yan, whereas little attention has been paid to the fourth edition noted in the preface of Zhang Yan's edition. At the beginning of its appearance, the dissemination of A New Account of the Tales of the World was apparently marked by regional characteristics. It was printed in Jiangnan, Sichuan and Tanzhou, followed by the emergence of scholars who studied, annotated and disseminated as well as made exchanges about the book. Lu You, among others, was both a printer and a disseminator, traveling from Hunan to Sichuan and Jiangnan to make connections between scholars of different regions. During the book form's transition from codex to printing, the active participation of noted literary figures and the literati groups clearly registered how widely A New Account of the Tales of the World was circulated in the Southern Song dynasty. Such a phenomenon is of great academic significance in the history of the development of literary classics. 

In the history of Western aesthetics, Cicero made a groundbreaking differentiation between two categories of beauty, namely, dignitas and venustas. Starting with a critical examination of this set of concepts, this article argues that Cicero utilized the conceptual and linguistic resources from the second century BCE onwards to develop his aesthetic theory. He defended the masculine dignitas while making venustas — previously used to denote feminine or erotic beauty—an indispensable charm for elite men. The inherent gender and class conflicts within the two types of beauty demonstrated the dilemma facing the ideal orators in Cicero's mind amidst the social crises of late Republican Rome. Since Cicero's time, the meaning of venustas had gone through a semantic shift. It became a common term describing aristocratic men as well as works of art. In Cicero's writings, dignitas and venustas had not yet become independent aesthetic concepts; instead, they were subordinate to the writer's ethical and political concerns.

This article explores the gestural criticism in Agamben's works and elucidates why it belongs to the biopolitical criticism of politics or ethics. This article has three sections. First, it discusses the dimensions of gesture, gag, emptiness, and pure medium, and then points out that gestural criticism's revolutionary significance in terms of suspending the critical tradition and resetting a new boundary for criticism. Second, it illuminates that gesture is also a key critical concept of Benjamin's, and then discusses the meaning and value of interruption in gesture. Third, this article illustrates that the theory of gesture belongs to biopolitical criticism. This article concludes that gesture is fundamental to Agamben's critical thought, which indicates a turn from aesthetic criticism to biopolitical criticism.