Suchergebnisse

Abstract
Modern Chinese literature is always already in the transculturation of non-Chinese concepts and discourses. My quibble with the current state of the field, however, has to do with the way we respond to the consequences of the transcultural traffic. While we assume a position of (moralist, political, or intellectual) sincerity, we tend to stop short of grappling with the "authenticity and viability" of our own theoretical frameworks regarding the subjects under critique. It has become a commonplace to criticize the uneven development of discursive agency in Chinese literary and cultural studies, with Western theory taking precedence over Chinese subjects (and subjectivities). But one cannot help noting that some of the most critical voices are themselves empowered by, or even sustaining, the Western canon they set out to subvert. Overcoming such a dilemma does not require us to retroactively claim either cultural essentialism or political historicism. Rather, we should seek to reengage theory, enacting "the mobility of ideas across time and space, which draws attention to the ways in which contexts both transform and are transformed by its movement." I argue that the "mobility" of theory presumably inherent in the current theoretical paradigm has not taken us far enough in exploring new terrain. In this article, I propose that we triangulate the paradigm of modern Chinese literary and cultural studies, by bringing premodern Chinese literary thought to bear on theoretical engagement on the one hand and textual studies on the other.

This book aims to analyse the rise of modern Chinese literature from the perspective of cultural production. With selected literary communities and publications from the 1910s to the 1930s as points of reference, the book argues that the emergence of Chinese "new literature" hinged not so much on avant-garde thoughts and texts as on a re-configuration of contextual, and sometimes conventional, "relations." Whereas the extant paradigm sees the literary field from the May Fourth period to the eve of the second Sino-Japanese War as one characterized by gestures such as individualism and iconoclasm, Hockx points to the fact that this field was no less marked by a call for communal solidarity, and a reinstatement of the traditions thought to have been overthrown.Hockx's case in point is the paradoxical situation that, their searches for selfhood notwithstanding, among modern Chinese writers and literati it has been fashionable to join societies or cliques, as if only group bonding could support personal confidence. In so doing they unwittingly maintained forms of social gathering characteristic of premodern Chinese literature. Meanwhile, these new literary groups capitalized on the modern medium of literary journal, through which they were able to solidify their textual and contextual relationships, and cultivate their "styles."

Abstract
Ecologising Taiwan means to think ecologically about, from, as well as by way of Taiwan. On the one hand, we ecologise Taiwan by viewing it through an ecological perspective; on the other hand, we also want to treat Taiwan itself as an agent that drives our thinking, no longer merely an object of our anthropocentric and anthropocenic gaze. Taiwan, as an island that encompasses a particularly wide range of biotopes, redefines insularity in its connectivity to other global spaces and networks: it pits its infinite potential for different encounters, relations, and comparisons against any bias of smallness and isolation. Culturally specific representations—the stories we tell about the environment and how we tell them—are important in environmental thinking. Thus ecologising Taiwan is not only about what ecological thinking can do for Taiwan but also about what Taiwan can do for ecological thought. In order to sound out the different resonances of what ecologising Taiwan might mean, this special issue brings together six essays that explore flexible links between ecological thought and Taiwanese culture. As such, this special issue is part of the ecological chain of Taiwan studies, featuring topics (even topoi) on languages, genres, media forms, and methodologies in contestation and transformation.