English Abstracts

Make “Industry” Visible: A Socialist Urban Culture with Chinese Characteristics

Zhang Huiyu

Industry is the cornerstone of modern civilization, but industry in the modern cultural landscape has become an object that cannot or difficult to be reproduced. In the mainstream culture, the factories, workers and industrial products related to industry are symbols of dirt, bottom level and pollution. On the contrary, non-industrial nature and scenery are lofty, harmonious and aesthetic. In the critical perspective of modernity,factories, workers and industrial products are the symbols of alienation, materialization and oppression, as well as the dark corners and evil places of bourgeois civilization. Different from these two common industrial imaginations, the underlying base of socialist culture happens to be industrial culture. Factories, industrial buildings, industrial production, factory labor and industrial cities become the objects of literary and artistic expression. Industry is not only visible, but also noble, vibrant and futuristic. This paper mainly takes Chinese films of early 1950s as examples to present the socialist urban culture with Chinese characteristics.

On the Roots of Traditional Culture in the Countryside

Zhao Defa

Chinese culture deeply roots in the vast land of the countryside with its flowing wind and new charm of traditional culture. Writings on the countryside must pay attention to the following three points: first is the hymn and the elegy. While singing elegy for the traditional culture and traditional way of life in the countryside, it also sings praise for its new changes and growth of young people in the countryside. The second concerns tradition and modernity. China has a long and complex cultural history, so it is necessary to utilize modern concepts and views from disciplines such as philosophy, sociology, anthropology, futurology and psychology, making in-depth research by literary works, so as to recognize this tradition and represent it well. The third point is on sensibility and rationality both of which can be used in writing so that the work could demonstrate the complexity and the complex feelings of human beings in the course of history.

Postmodern Public Welfare Phenomenon from the Perspective of Deleuze’s Generative Theory: the Formation of Social Enterprises in China as an Example

Guan Yu

With the advent of postmodernism, China’s public welfare field has gradually entered into a new era of fragmentation, diversification,cross-border and uncertainty. Based on the philosophy of Gill Deleuze, a French post structuralist philosopher, this paper depicts one of the realistic aspects of the diversified patterns of China’s public welfare in the postmodern order landscape, so as to provide a strong evidence for the establishment of postmodern world outlook in the public domain. On the other hand, it also brings the realistic annotation of sociology for a multidimensional thinking of the post-modern world. Deleuze’s philosophical idea of “becoming” and concepts as difference, nomadism and tuber are used to analyze the new things in the field of Chinese public welfare - social enterprises. With metaphor, it reveals how social enterprises can become a new type of organization to achieve social goals from pursuing the maximization of commercial interests as common enterprises. The two-way “becoming” objects (not limited to social enterprises) of postmodern enterprises and public welfare with the characteristics of generation,nomadism and difference, are the dual products of the times and social development.

The Literary Writing of Alzheimer’s Disease:Involving the Dimension of Medical Narrative

Cao Xiaohua

Though the encounter of literary research and medical science occurs late, the combination of literary work and medicine has a long history.Literary writings about Alzheimer’s disease weaken subject’s memories, causing the disconnection and paralysis of the logic relations among sentences, which eventually creates a narrator who’s not able to prove his self-existence. Sometimes the observers’ views fuse the emotion of blood ties. Alzheimer’s disease not only expands the dimension of medical narrative with memory patterns and recognition, but also brings the foreseeing crisis for the observers because of its genetic characteristics, which strengthens the spiritual exploration in texts. The self recognition is linked with flexible time and space patterns in the literary writings of Alzheimer’s disease, igniting multiple sides of humanity between life and death.

Innovative Development & Practice of Jiangnan’s Ancient Towns in the New Era from Cultural Perspective

Zhang Yongguang, Li Yajuan

From cultural perspective, ancient towns of Jiangnan are the source of Jiangnan culture, and the most typical representative of cultural regionality, diversity and integrity of China’s urban types. Culture has profound significance and far-reaching impact on the development of Jiangnan’s ancient town. After the initial dilemma of protection and development, Jiangnan’s ancient towns are oriented by culture, giving full play to their cultural advantages, and stepping into a new stage of cultural upgrading and innovative development. The practical innovation of Jiangnan’s ancient towns in the new era includes three aspects: building a multi-cultural gathering place, expanding cultural space and developing cultural industry.

Time: on Stiegler’s Technical Criticism of Digital Cultural Industry

Sun Yunfei

Stiegler, a contemporary French philosopher of technology, focuses on “time” to form a unique discourse system of technological criticism.He continues Heidegger’s ontology and introduces Derrida’s concept of “différance”, then creatively puts forward the temporality of technology in structure of Dasein. In the current era of digital capitalism, the digital cultural industry controls people in time by means of technology, which is mainly reflected in the cancellation of “différance” of digital information, leading to “eventualization” and time-space crisis, as well as the replacement of real time with other time by digital image, resulting in comprehensive de-individuality. In this regard, we should actively play the therapeutic role of technology, and explore the open structure of human beings’ generation of “transduction” from technological objects, that is,the generation of singularity in repetition time.

European Anti-Resonance Drama and Its Effects of Chinese Theatre

Jiang Wen

The involvement of Chinese opera art into European drama art is embodied in the foreign exchange activities of Mr. Mei Lanfang in the 20th century. A group of dramatists like Brecht, Meyerhold dedicate to absorb theatrical forms from Chinese traditional opera art featured with conventions, and then establish the epic drama theory, the assumption drama theory and other modern anti-resonance drama theories, whose aim is to construct “distance” to overthrow the absolute position of Aristotelian resonance drama which monopolizes the theater market for a long time.However, different cultural traditions and ways of thinking between China and the west inevitably lead to different degrees of misunderstanding in the process of cultural transmission. Chinese opera fully embodies the worship of beauty and love in traditional culture, and is deeply influenced by traditional Taoism and Buddhism. It pursues the artistic realm of “unity of man and nature” instead of the meaning expression and social responsibility pursued by western modern drama. However, even if there are some misinterpretations, its significance for the transformation of modern drama in Europe cannot be ignored. It provides a feasible example for anti-resonance modern drama, improves the concept of drama by Brecht and others, and helps western drama evolve from tradition to modernity.

A Comparative Study on the Tragedy Category & Aesthetic Forms of the East and West

Chen Wei, Li Xinxin

Tragedy is not only one of the main genres of drama with a long history, but also an important aesthetic category. From ancient times to the present, countless “tragic masters” and classic works have sprung up in China and the west, ranging from the three great tragedies of ancient Greece to Shakespeare in the Renaissance, to the neoclassical tragedies in the 17th century; from Yuan Zaju in the late Song and early Yuan Dynasties to the tragedies in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Because of the differences in geographical environment, social background, cultural customs, ideology and other aspects between the East and the west, they have formed different aesthetic connotation and thinking modes, which is also projected with different artistic features in tragic works and theories of tragedy. This paper uses the method of “analysis and comparison” to sort out the tragic works of China and the West in different stages, studies the differences and similarities between the two, and further explores the aesthetic values and significance of tragic art.

On the Evolution of Classical Private Gardens in Modern China with Aili Garden As the Example

Guo Runzi

The function and form of Chinese classical private gardens changed in modern times, which is the reflection of aesthetic experience of Chinese gardens. Taking Aili Garden as the example, this paper makes a research into the process of the collision, negotiation and integration of private gardens and western modern culture with the evolution of Chinese classic private gardens in their functions and forms, which signifies a double interweaving of times and nationality, so as to study the changes in the aesthetic preference of Chinese gardens embodied by the changes of private gardens in modern China.

On Kong Yingda’s Interpretation of the Theory of “Six Poems”

Qiao Dongyi

Kong Yingda, a great Confucian in Tang Dynasty, made a systematic and detailed explan ation of the “Six Poems” inThe Book of Songs,and initiated the theory of “Three Forms and Three Uses”. On the one hand, it promotes the connotation and extension of “Six Poems” to be fully displayed. On the other hand, it shows a more obvious stylistic concept and a conscious awareness of the aesthetic form of literature and art, and at the same time solves many problems of the traditional theory of “Six Poems”. Compared with the interpretation ofThe Book of Songsby Han Confucians, its political and religious color is relatively weak and its aesthetic color is significantly enhanced. This is of great significance for later scholars to understand the essence of the theory of “Six Poems” more accurately and profoundly, and effectively promote the poetic and aesthetic orientation of the study ofThe Book of Songs.

Two Views of “National Language” in Modern China:Centering on the Unified Pronunciation Association

Chen Xi

The Unified Pronunciation Association has approved the national pronunciation and formulated the phonetic alphabet to assist the phonetic representation of Chinese characters, which reflects how the intellectuals conceive the national language system and education system of the modern nation-state. Based on Wang Zhao’s and Wu Zhihui’s views on Mandarin, this paper traces back to two different thoughts in the Mandarin Movement in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China. Wang Zhao’s starts from the perspective of mass education, thinking that the most extensive Beijing dialect should be taken as the standard of Mandarin. Wu Zhihui declares, however, that Chinese dialects are different, and there is no ready-made and finished language that can serve as the standard of Mandarin, and that we should take the pronunciation of Chinese characters as a clue to unify the national pronunciation first, and then to improve the language, so as to produce a new national language as a result.These two different views on Mandarin reflect the two basic aspects in the formation of the modern Mandarin system: a standardization based on one of the living languages, or the consideration of Mandarin as a common communication tool for national expression and political participation.And the consistent modern education is the prerequisite for the formation of this concept.

She Gracefully Walks Towards You Following Zhang Ailing

Chen Shenglai

Wangran Zhang Ailingis ChunZi’s twelfth work about Zhang Ailing. This documentary literature about Zhang Ailing is not entirely a documentary literature in its conventional sense. It has views, comments, textual research, research and interviews, which is a unique style of ChunZi. The book employs prosaic tones, novel techniques, and the montage editing of the movie, combing skillfully and illusively the narrator and the narrated, the realistic scene and the historical flashback, which endows the narrating with literary and artistic agility and feminine charm.Her writing has its own merits and distinctive features.