2020 Vol. 3, No. 2

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Why Modern Chinese Poetry? Challenges and Opportunities
Michelle Yeh
2020, 3(2): 211-222. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.2020321
Abstract:
This essay, based on the keynote address at the biennial conference of the Association of Chinese and Comparative Literature in August 2019, is divided into three parts. Part One is an overview of the development of modern Chinese poetry as an academic field in the English-speaking world, mainly North America and Europe. Part Two delves into the dramatic structural changes in China from the pre-modern period to the twentieth century. As a result of the “seismic changes” in society and culture, modern poetry has encountered unprecedented challenges in terms of the role and function of poetry, the persistence of the traditional aesthetic paradigm, and the need to establish a new readership. On the other hand, the historical and aesthetic challenges also present opportunities for scholars. Part Three suggests such opportunities, such as modern poetry's role as a cultural vanguard throughout modern Chinese history.
[Abstract](1118) [PDF 2727KB](1780)
A Metaphor of Time and Space in the “Bird” Images of Han Dynasty Stone and the “Gansu Flying Horse”: Taking the Visual Interpretation of “Inverted Expression of Images” as Logical Starting Point from a Cross-Cultural Perspective
MA Kaizhen
2020, 3(2): 223-260. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.2020322
Abstract:
This paper abstracts a classic visual practice of “inverted expression of images” from Han Dynasty stone art, which belongs to the giant gene pool of human visual culture, to implement induction and reorganization. This specific visual practice is situated in a cross-cultural perspective of world art, which includes primitive art, classical art, and folk art, to juxtapose and compare two kinds of thinking and two different visual methods: the primitive and the scientific. Taking this as a logical starting point, the author analyzes, differentiates, and interprets the metaphor of time and space from the “bird” images of Han Dynasty stone to the “Gansu Flying Horse,” and explores the coding mode of its “prototype,” in order to finally achieve a basic description of this unique visual practice of early civilization in the sense of art and anthropology.
[Abstract](920) [PDF 17620KB](594)
Li Zehou and The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism
ZHANG Xuchun
2020, 3(2): 261-275. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.2020323
Abstract:
Parts of Li Zehou's Four Essays on Aesthetics have been included into the second edition of The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. This is symbolic for contemporary Chinese literary theory. This paper purports to analyze several seminal ideas in Li's post-Marxist aesthetics: 1) Li's theory of “primitive sedimentation” which is based upon “the naturalism of man and the humanism of nature” mentioned in passing in Marx's 1844 Manuscripts and supported by China's archeological discoveries as well as ancient Chinese arts; 2) a materialist re-interpretation of Kantian “purposiveness,” “subjective universal communicability,” and “sensus communis”?; 3) a reconstruction of the classical Chinese poetic idea of wen qi and gu li (literary force and bone-strength). Inspired by Li, this paper also argues that certain classical Chinese literary theories may possibly be applied to reading classical, if not modernist-postmodernist Western poetry.
[Abstract](782) [PDF 1951KB](825)
Between German Frühromantik and Goethe: On Walter Benjamin's Literary Thoughts in Zwei Gedichte der Hölderlin
YAO Yunfan
2020, 3(2): 276-288. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.2020324
Abstract:
For many major thinkers of the twentieth century, exegeses on Friedrich Hölderlin's poems were once an essential medium for manifesting their thoughts, of which Martin Heidegger's were the most influential. In contrast to Heidegger's Erläuterungen zu Höelderlins Dichtung, Walter Benjamin's interpretative work on Hölderlin was omitted by Chinese scholars. In his early academic career, Benjamin was greatly interested in Hölderlin's works. Via the comparison of Hölderlin's “Dichtermut” and “Blödigkeit,” Benjamin tried his best to present the tension between truth of the art itself (Absolute Form) and its appearance (Erscheinungsform) in a work. The endeavor was in the service of a manifestation on the concrete but universal intuitive-spirit configuration of literary compositions. Benjamin's interpretation of Hölderlin's works shows the turning of his literary thoughts, which once followed the step of German early romanticism, to Goethe's art theory based on the concept of “nature.”
[Abstract](836) [PDF 1922KB](483)
From Monroe to Mishima: Gender and Cultural Identity in Yasumasa Morimura's Performance and Photography
HUANG Bihe
2020, 3(2): 289-300. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.2020325
Abstract:
Japanese contemporary artist Yasumasa Morimura is renowned for his parodies of female characters in Western paintings and film stars in Western mainstream movies through performance and photography. In this essay, through an analysis of Morimura's Marilyn Series (1996) and “Seasons of Passion” (2006), the first chapter of his recent project, A Requiem, I will investigate Morimura's performance and photography from a gendered perspective. With a comparison between Monroe's image in the film still of The Seven Year Itch (1955) and Morimura's Self-Portrait (Actress) / White Marilyn and Self-Portrait (Actress) / White Marilyn, this essay will also examine how Morimura challenges the male gaze of the heterosexual male and fixed gender identity with his male body. By contextualizing his works in the US-Japan relations in the postwar period, I will also explore the connections between the two appropriated figures, Marilyn Monroe and Yukio Mishima, and see how Morimura intersects gender identity of the self with the cultural gender of a nation. By making comparisons between the original images of Mishima in Eikoh Hosoe's photo album Ordeal by Roses and Morimura's appropriations in “Seasons of Passion,” this essay will show how Japan's cultural gender identity is addressed in Morimura's appropriation practices.
[Abstract](1093) [PDF 4863KB](836)
The Other Edge of Literature: The Reinterpretation of Baudelaire's “Modernity-Genesis Field” in Les Fleurs du mal
HE Guangshun
2020, 3(2): 301-317. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.2020326
Abstract:
The “modernity” revealed in Baudelaire's work Les Fleurs du mal can not only be examined singly within the internal development of Western civilization, but can also be seen within the spirit of the genesis field that Chinese literature stressed, in order to help reveal its unique quality as a model text in the beginning of modernist literature. The spirit of the genesis field in Chinese literature developed and formed in classical times, and it mainly refers to the harmonious state of Property, Divinity, and Humanity emphasized by literature as a non-territory cultural phenomenon and its perceptual intuition of life. Baudelaire's “modernity-genesis field” in Les Fleurs du mal reconstructs the relationship of Thing-Person-God after this relationship is broken by industrialization and capitalism. In the Western classical literature dominated by the ontology of metaphysics, this creation of a “modernity-genesis field” penetrates into the veins and bones of modern civilization and creates a new literary style that is filled with internal differences and contradictions. Namely, the discovery of the city's evil in the absolute goodness of anti-metaphysics; the revelation of the anonymity and concealment of the urban masses in the dictatorial authority of the anti-philosopher king; the practice of symbolism in anti-classical and anti-romantic writings—these formed the three dimensions of Baudelaire's genesis field of poetry, political and cultural, which deserve further exploration.
[Abstract](784) [PDF 2167KB](496)
World Literature and Modern Chinese Fiction
LIN Xiaoxia
2020, 3(2): 318-334. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.2020327
Abstract:
Goethe's “invention” of Weltliteratur in the late 1820s helped shape a post-Napoleonic world. The revival of world literature has now become another cutting-edge theoretical topic on which both eminent Western and Eastern scholars are focusing today. Although scholars often debate globalization's favorable or unfavorable impact on the development of comparative literature, as if it were a preexisting entity inflected by a changing cultural environment, this paper contends that the globalization of material, cultural, and intellectual production, followed by the dissolution of Eurocentrism and “West-centrism” and by the rise of Eastern culture and literature, has assisted the development of world literature in the context of globalization. Moreover, taking diaspora intellectuals Eric Auerbach, Edward Said, and Ling Shuhua, for example, this paper also gives a general account of the development and relationship between world literature and modern Chinese fiction.
[Abstract](828) [PDF 2394KB](487)
On the Relatedness of Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure to Chinese Literature and Culture
FEI Xiaoping
2020, 3(2): 335-354. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.2020328
Abstract:
Thomas Hardy's last novel Jude the Obscure is one of his most mature works, and together with Tess of the d'Urbervilles and The Return of the Native, is considered as an “intellectual novel.” In terms of theme, plot and culture, the novel bears some similarities to Chinese literature and film. However, these similarities are not due to direct influences between them, but are rather related to the quintessence of poetry and the spirit of literature synchronically transcending space and time. Yet, similarities are also accompanied by dissimilarities. We can depend on a large quantity of textual material, and therefore summarize the quintessence of poetry and the spirit of literature concerned. Likewise, the aesthetic value of literary works may be excavated, and the mechanics of literary development explored, which tends to make a down-to-earth contribution to the textualization of parallel study for comparative literature. With this premise, Goethe's “age of world literature” can be more effectively furthered.
[Abstract](1375) [PDF 2631KB](499)
Review and Reflection: Compilation of The History of Literary Exchanges between China and Foreign Countries (17 Volumes)
QIAN Linsen
2020, 3(2): 355-366. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.2020329
Abstract:
The seventeen-volume book series The History of Literary Exchanges between China and Foreign Countries published by Shandong Education Press, which is based on numerous documentary sources as well as relevant theoretical resources, contains studies on Chinese narrative by foreign writers, the reception of foreign literature by Chinese writers, different views of related ideological propositions in different cultural contexts, reflection on the existing research paradigms and theories, etc. These various dimensions of arguments show the inner vitality of literary communication and lively historical scenes, and promote the development of discipline consciousness. The book series has been highly praised by scholars at home and abroad, and has won a number of national awards. Many volumes have successfully realized the output of a variety of foreign language copyrights and have generated widespread international response.
[Abstract](778) [PDF 2079KB](460)
Medical Humanities, COVID-19, and Global Healing: An Interview with Prof. Karen L. Thornber
Karen L. Thornber, QU Yang
2020, 3(2): 367-375. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20203210
Abstract:
As a leading scholar in the fields of comparative and world literature and environmental humanities, Professor Karen L. Thornber has recently published a major scholarly monograph, Global Healing: Literature, Advocacy, Care (Brill, 2020), which is a monumental work on medical and health humanities as well as a timely publication in a pandemic age. In this book, she discusses how literature and literary scholarship not only highlight the importance of shattering disease stigmas, humanizing healthcare, and prioritizing care partnerships, but also remind people of the value of providing comfort and understanding for those who have lost loved ones, or who are caring for loved ones. In this interview, Professor Thornber shares her thoughts on the writing of this book, the field of medical/health humanities, and the COVID-19 pandemic.
[Abstract](793) [PDF 2088KB](477)
WANG Jiajun. Being, Exoticism, and the Other: Emmanuel Levinas and Contemporary French Literary Theory
BI Xiao
2020, 3(2): 379-383. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20203211
Abstract:
[Abstract](620) [PDF 4557KB](479)
Nicolai Volland. Socialist Cosmopolitanism: The Chinese Literary Universe, 1945-1965
XU Hangping
2020, 3(2): 384-387. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20203212
Abstract:
[Abstract](809) [PDF 1653KB](481)
FANG Weigui. The Historical Weight of Conceptions
JIN Wen
2020, 3(2): 388-391. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20203213
Abstract:
[Abstract](631) [PDF 3662KB](458)
Zhang, Yu. Interfamily Tanci Writing in Nineteenth-Century China: Bonds and Boundaries
LIU Wenjia
2020, 3(2): 392-396. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20203214
Abstract:
[Abstract](614) [PDF 1749KB](412)
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