Will Literature Die Out: Meditations on the Frontiers of Academia

Author: Du Shuying
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-01-01
Features: In the era of electronic media (or the era of telecommunication technology, the era of globalization, etc.), literature, art, and the entire academic field have been greatly impacted. At the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries, a startling proposition spread to China: "The age of literature will no longer exist," "Literature will come to an end," and even philosophy and psychoanalysis were deemed "doomed" (as stated by the renowned American scholar J. Hillis Miller in his speech at the international academic conference "The Future of Literary Theory: China and the World" held in Beijing in autumn 2000. This speech was later published in the first issue of Literary Review in 2001 under the title "Will Literary Studies Continue to Exist in the Era of Globalization?"). It seemed that literature and philosophy would face a catastrophic fate. As a result, in recent years, many new cutting-edge academic issues in Chinese academia have attracted widespread attention and sparked heated debates, such as: What impact has the electronic media era had on the world? How has the "telecommunication technology kingdom" changed people's production methods and content, lifestyles and content, modes of thinking and content, emotional modes and content, and perceptual modes and content? How should academia develop in the face of globalization? Will literature perish? Is "the aestheticization of life and the life of aesthetics" leading to the unification of art and life? Are there still boundaries between literature/art and life? Where is literary studies headed? And so on. Will Literature Perish?—Reflections on Academic Frontiers is a product of thought and research on these (and other related) cutting-edge issues, which have been of great interest to scholars in the fields of aesthetics, philosophy, and literary studies. The book is divided into three parts: the Upper Part, "Literature in the Era of Electronic Media," which is a hot topic in the current literary studies field and explores whether literature will perish in this era. The Middle Part, "Contemplating the Academic History of Literary Studies," focuses on and deeply studies cutting-edge issues such as the academic history of literary studies and aesthetics in China during the 20th century. The Lower Part, "Reflections on Aesthetics," is essentially a condensed version of the century-long history of aesthetic studies, proposing the concept of value aesthetics based on summarizing the historical experiences and lessons of past aesthetic research.