Literary Theory Frontiers (Volume 2)

Author: Wang Ning
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-03-01
Features: This book is divided into five columns. In the column "Dialogue: The Future of Literary Criticism Theory," we published 7 selected articles from Explorations in Critical Theory. These articles were all written by contemporary literary theory giants who served as editorial board members of the journal. Originally, they were written as dialogue-style texts invited by the journal's editor-in-chief, Mitchell, to lead the thematic seminar "The Future of Literary Criticism Theory," and later revised for publication in the journal. Although these authors focus on their unique perspectives and mainly discuss the current state of American literary theory, they also offer inspiration and reference for describing the development trends of contemporary Chinese literary theory in an international context. The second column, titled "Frontier Theoretical Explorations," aptly explains the research objects of this group of articles: Tao Dongfeng's article attempts to refute the prevailing argument in literary theory circles that "cultural studies and literary studies are in opposition," which is also a concern of the international academic community today. The third column features two papers selected from the keynote and thematic speeches of the seminar. The two speakers respectively explored Derrida's literary and philosophical thoughts, particularly providing a realistic evaluation of the legacy of deconstruction theory for contemporary humanities and social science research. Of course, the study of Derrida and his deconstruction theory will remain an important topic for literary theorists in the future. The fourth column, titled "Classical Chinese Literary Theory and Modernity," essentially continues the heated academic discussion in recent years on the "modernization of classical Chinese literary theory." The two authors, "modernity" from the perspective of Western theory circles, actually attempt to elucidate the unique theoretical value of classical Chinese literary theory through comparison. They point out that, like Western classical literary theory, it can also be used to interpret contemporary literary phenomena and theoretical issues, through interpretation and discussion, engaging in dialogue with Western theories, and some shortcomings of Western literary theory categories. The final column, titled "Studies on 20th Century Literary Theory Masters," aims to systematically introduce recently active literary theory masters in the international literary theory community to the domestic literary theory circles.