English Abstracts

Abstract: While Chinese ancient philosophy focuses on things’ variety, that is, “ten thousands of specialities”, it puts more emphasis on the route and the unity of changes, that is, “one fundamental”. This is similar to the “variety in unity” proposed by the Western philosophy and aesthetics, both highlighting a harmonious development of the universe under the premise of affi rming “one fundamental and ten thousands of specialities” and “variety in unity”. Therefore, the ideal for “variety in unity” is “variety in harmonious unity”, which is the connotation of Chinese notion of Tai Ji with a meaning of “perpetual life in the circle”. This is the special trait of Chinese traditional philosophy.

The Reconstruction of Mission Consciousness of Chinese Humanity Studies

Wang Zhihe, Wang Xiaohua

After the 1990s, there is a far-reaching variation in Chinese humanity studies: while the academic becomes prominent, the thought has gone into retirement. Now, nearly thirty years have passed, this situation has been continuing which results in the weakness of mission awareness and identity crisis. In order to overcome this defi ciency, the humanistic intellectuals must face up to dual challenges: on the one hand, the project of modernity has not fulfi lled; on another hand, the post-modern transformation has already on the process. In this process, we must grasp the most important clue: both the project of modernity and the post-modern plan are aiming at the goal to help the individual to stand up. The difference lies in the fact that the Enlightenment after the 1980s focus on the human while the constructive postmodernism introduces the ecological perspective. If we understand this logical thread, our mission consciousness will become more profound: The unfi nished project of modernity will be brought into the new context, and the theoretic cordial system which encompasses the human and nature will turn up. A more complete civilization blueprint will be depicted, and the post-colonial context can be overcome by Chinese humanity intellectuals.

The “Theory of Literary Image” and the Formal Aesthetics of Zhao Xianzhang

Xiao Shiyu

Abstract: The relationship between literature and image has been promoted to the academic front by an Image Age. As the tide of this domain, Zhao Xianzhang’s “Theory of Literary Image” believes that the central research of the relationship between literature and image is the comparison of linguistic and image symbols, which is based on the present literary situation and its “Symbol Crisis”. In other words, the method of “Language-Image” has promoted the whole literary study. As for Zhao Xianzhang’s academic research, the research of “Theory of Literary Image”is a transformation of his study on stylistics, and stylistics is a continuity of his research of formal aesthetic. Thus it can be seen that the formal aesthetics based on the principle of “an interpretation of literary meaning through its form” demonstrate its favorable academic ductility.

The “Image-Reading” Trend in Modern Chinese Literary History Writing

Wei Jizhou, Tang Qiongqiong

Abstract: It cannot be ignored that image-reading of the whole people impacts on Chinese modern literary history writing and publishing. As a way of proposing problems by literary history, image narration endows images with a narrative ability and explores a fi eld of visual culture in the traditional writing of Chinese modern literary history. The signifi ed images develop a new discourse logic of literary history, relocate the center of the meaning by literary history, and construct a meaning space through the integration of images and characters for Chinese modern literature history. Image narration includes refi ned and popular tastes and highlights multiplex symbiosis, which demystifi es an elite writing of Chinese modern literature history writing. However, it has also some unsurpassable limitations obviously.

On Animal Beauty

Qi Zhixiang

Abstract: Traditional Western aesthetics thinks that beauty is only for human and only human has aesthetic ability. However, from the perspective of ecological aesthetics which insists on universal equality and coexistence with difference, animals also have their own beauty andaesthetic ability. While human regards corresponding objects as “beauty” according to the pleasure he could get from these objects, animals would likewise have their own corresponding objects providing pleasure which will also be taken as “beauty”. The beauty common to both human and animals is generally confi ned to objects’ forms which could cause sensual pleasure. Aestheticians of the West and China conduct useful researches into the similarities and differences of human’s and animal’s sense of beauty, of which we should make fare use in a new aesthetic perspective.

Aesthetic Ideal and Generating Atmosphere of Art ─Tomonobu Imamichi’ Concept “Consciousness of Night”

Shi Changping

Abstract: Based on aesthetic experience, Tomonobu Imamichi, a famous Japanese aesthetician creatively puts forward the idea of “Consciousness of Night” with profound and unique understanding of oriental classical aesthetic. He demonstrates an important proposition, claiming that the night is not only the village of art but also the hometown of aesthetic experience. This proposition, together with his “Consciousness of Day”, the conception of “Earth” and “Season”, has become Tomonobu Imamichi’s unique aesthetic category. The idea of “Consciousness of Night” represents his revolt against a modern art and technology age. It also embodies an aesthetic consciousness of “the harmony between human being and nature” in oriental culture.

The Mass Ornament

Siegfried Kracauer (Trans by Yang Xiangrong, Fu Haiqin)

Abstract: Mass ornaments is for the mass but not the people. The ornament takes itself as an end. A current of organic life surges from these communal groups—which share a common destiny—their ornaments, endowing these ornaments with a magic force. The mass ornament detached from its bearers must be understood rationally. The structure of the mass ornament refl ects that of the entire contemporary situation. The mass ornament is the aesthetic refl ex of the rationality to which the prevailing economic system aspires. Compared to the concrete immediacy of other corporeal presentations, the ornament’s conformity to reason is thus an illusion. Reason can gain entrance only with diffi culty when the masses it ought to pervade yield to sensations afforded by the godless mythological cult. It can move forward only when thinking circumscribes nature and produces man as he is constituted by reason. Then society will change. Then, too, the mass ornament will fade away and human life itself will adopt the traits of that ornament into which it develops, through its confrontation with truth, in fairy tales.

Togetherness-In-Difference: From Diaspora to Hybridity

Ien Ang (Trans by Ding Jinyan)

Abstract: In the globalised world of the twenty-fi rst century, the growing global prominence of what has come to be called identity politics has bred a profound suspicion of any “universalising claims” to a “common humanity”, the very idea of moving beyond Diaspora and living together, becomes hugely daunting. In this climate, the importance of “hybridity” in a world has become increasingly important. Unlike other key concepts in contemporary politics of difference—such as Diaspora and multiculturalism—it foregrounds complicated entanglement rather than identity, togetherness-in-difference rather than separateness and virtual apartheid. It is considered that regarding the world as an entirety and taking the process of hybridity seriously is a productive “fi eld of energy and socio-cultural innovation”, which has become rather commonplace in contemporary cultural studies.

The Academic Research Life of Wang Guowei

Zhou Xishan

Abstract: Wang Guowei is extremely talented scholar and has a great and leading achievement in Chinese literary, philosophy, aesthetics, artistic theory, cultural criticism, phonology, palaeography, history, epigaphy, pedagogics, Dunhuang studies, philonogy, geography of Northwest, Mongolian studies, library science, and so on. He is also a translator and brilliant poetic creator, hailed as the fi rst master of Chinese culture.

The History of the Red Mansion and the Development of the Record Industry in Shanghai

Zhang Xiuhua

Abstract: The red mansion located in Xujiahui Garden has witnessed the great history of Chinese record industry with its birth, development and transformation. The audio data preserved by the red mansion of the record industry over its hundred’s history is precious and monumental, which should not be forgotten.

The Cultural Memory of Modern China and Modernity: An Analysis of How the Memory of Cultural Revolution Becomes the Cultural Memory

You Xilin

Abstract: Memory culture includes three aspects: preserving facts, explaining meanings and strengthening commemoration. Cultural memory belongs to the level of belief. Contemporary cultural memory is very different from tyranny and becomes a modern construction of faith, transcending the various debates on free memories of modernity, and covering memory’s ideology of modernism. Contemporary cultural memory is a functional link for Chinese modernization. The memory will review all the historical backgrounds and foundations of modern transformation, and commemorate national spirit by cultural integration. Memories of the Cultural Revolution were once the bottom line of the psychological and social consensus in Chinese modernizing transformation, but it is broken since the differentiating of social stratum in 1990s. Depending on the realization of justice, the memory of the Cultural Revolution will surpass old grudge and become the sublimation of reconciliation. It is also the goal of our social spiritual guidance.

Cultural Memory and Identity Anxiety:
Book Review on Flowing Wen Shui River by Hu Yongsheng

Wei Qingpei

Abstract: Flowing Wen Shui River, the long novel written Hu Yongsheng, traces the historical and cultural changes of hundred of years over the bank of Wen Shui River, thus reviving the secular life and spiritual struggle of the descendant of Shang Tribes. While the novel minimizes its warmth and passion for history, the “big bird” and “Mulberry Garden” is rather a cultural sign of the novel’s tragic sense and identity anxiety than a symbol of the writer’s life ideal. Therefore, the discourse of modernity such as cultural crisis, identity anxiety and historic consciousness dominates the lingual practice and textual formulation, which also demonstrates the poetic height reached by the writer in expressing the cultural dilemma of the time.

Bodily Carnival and Aesthetic Spirit of Urban Fashion

Zhang Baogui

Abstract: There are three problems faced by urban fashion arts in contemporary China, that is, it lacks an aesthetic spirit, a healthy aesthetic spirit or a spirit imposed by the outside, which is caused by economic culture and philosophical history. The logic of production and consumption directly erodes its aesthetic spirit, turning fashion arts into a bodily symbol without spirits due to a longing for bodily emancipation and a boredom of spiritual pursuits. The way to settle these problems is, fi rstly, to affi rm bodily necessity, then to regard the spirit as a natural occurrence instead of a thought, and thirdly, to make sure that the spirit could evolve naturally into a individual and transcendent one. The transcendence is the value standard for the assessment of the spirit of urban fashion arts, aiming at making urban life better.

On “One Fundamental and Ten Thousands of Specialities”

Yang Chengyin