Eighties cultural awareness

Author: Gan Yang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-07-01
Features: The 1980s seem like a very distant era. To people today, the "cultural fever" of the 1980s may seem incredible: What is "culture"? What is there to discuss in this intangible and elusive concept? Focusing on culture rather than the economy, yet ignoring modernity, shows how outdated, ridiculous, and unmodern the people of the 1980s were! However, no matter what, the "cultural fever" of the 1980s, which lasted nearly four years (1985–1988), has become part of Chinese historical consciousness. For many participants, the 1980s was not only an era of youthful passion but also one of innocence, simplicity, and fewer calculations. After China launched the movement for ideological liberation in the 1980s, the intellectual, cultural, and academic circles became extraordinarily vibrant, giving rise to a new generation of insightful young scholars and thinkers. Among them, a trend that sought to explore Western empirical spirit and scientific attitude once attracted attention both in China and abroad. As understanding of Western culture expanded and deepened, a group of young scholars led by Gan Yang emerged, representing a completely different approach and initiating exchanges and dialogues between Chinese intellectuals and Western humanities. This book selects representative academic articles from that time, which reflect various aspects of the cultural reflection of the 1980s from multiple perspectives. From these valuable historical documents, we can still faintly see the passionate yet rational cultural fever of that era; we may also awaken the cultural memory and awareness we are gradually losing. The book is divided into two parts. The first part, "Rebellion," primarily reflects the cultural conditions of mainland China in the 1980s through the sensory cultural fields of art, film, fiction, poetry, and architecture, which can clearly reveal cultural emotions and avant-garde consciousness. The second part, "Hesitation," attempts to focus on the research and reflections of young Chinese intellectuals on contemporary and modern Western culture. The book is divided into two parts, with the first part titled "Rebellion" and the second part labeled "Hesitation." The first part reflects the cultural reality of mainland China through the sensory cultural fields of art, film, fiction, poetry, and architecture, which can clearly reveal cultural emotions and avant-garde consciousness. The second part attempts to focus on the research and reflections of young Chinese intellectuals on contemporary and modern Western culture in recent years.