“Seeing Her Through a Bamboo Curtain”: Envisaging a National Literature through Chinese Folk Songs

In 1922, Chang Hui (1894–1985) published in Folk Song Weekly ten ballads with a shared motif: “seeing her through a bamboo curtain” (gezhe zhulian kanjian ta). Regarding the ballads as at once ten place-based, local folk songs and one placeless, national poetry, Chang urged attention to the exemplary influence of folk songs on the unification of languages in early twentieth-century China. Throughout the folk song campaign (c. 1918–c. 1927), however, the potential of folk songs to facilitate nationalization of Chinese language and literature remained arguably unfulfilled. This article examines the reasons for folk songs’ lack of influence on modern Chinese literary history. Through an analysis of contesting ideas and agendas regarding the literary nature of folk song, the author reveals that folk songs were rediscovered at a moment of modern Chinese history when prevalent discourses on Chinese language and literature could not fully accommodate the folk, the dialect, or the oral nature of folk song.     

Dancing Sita/reinventing a body disappeared: Notes from from Sita: Lament,fury, and a plea for peace

Richard Shannon's solo performance piece, The Lady of Burma, takes his audience inside Burmese democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's imprisonment as she tells her story, moving between memory and the present. This excerpt begins as Suu Kyi has returned to Burma to care for her ailing mother, just as students begin to take to the streets against the ruling junta. In this sequence, Suu Kyi re-enacts the early violence subjected to the democracy activists (scenes that are eerily reminiscent of the spectacle of violence documented in Iran over the past year). As the scene continues, Suu Kyi describes her gradual engagement with the democracy activists, building to her famed address at the sacred Shwedagon Pagoda, in which Suu Kyi mobilized many of the nation's population in their struggle for liberation. The excerpt ends as Suu Kyi continues her struggle to lead the Burmese people to freedom through peaceful revolution, at the same time that her mother's life is coming to a close.     

Imagining a dialectical African modernity: Achebe's ontological hopes,Sembene's machines,Mda's epistemological redness

In Chinua Achebe's book of essays Hopes and Impediments, he asserts that Nigeria's failure to ‘develop’ and ‘modernise’ like Japan is because of a ‘failure of imagination’. Yet for many Africans, modernity is a tainted ‘gift’ because it was introduced into the African continent along with European colonial capitalism which simultaneously caused an ontological crisis of self. Although many Africans want to ‘catch up’ with the West, how is it possible when Western technological superiority was equated with white racial superiority? Achebe declares that, as Africans ‘begin their journey into the strange, revolutionary world of modernization’, literature should function as guide. Hence, I examine Ousmane Sembene's novel God's Bits of Wood which depicts Africans laying claim to ‘race-less’, ‘language-less’ ‘machines’. But does (Western) technology change culture? Can African culture appropriate technology to form a dialectical African modernity? If so, what role does ‘tradition’ play? In Zakes Mda's The Heart of Redness, we witness the emergence of a traditional modernity made possible by a dialectical epistemology.     

英国近代自然主义文学的肇始形态

英国近代文学发轫于文艺复兴。除乔叟、莎士比亚、琼生等的人文主义的社会主题创作外,自然主义的创作也随着时代的变革而兴起。这一新潮流虽不直接参与社会政治冲突,却从更深层面触及到世界观的转变,开辟了有别于中世纪以及上古时代的崭新的自然观,并从根本上奠定了近代英国人社会变革活动的精神基础。随着资本主义体系的确立和壮大,英国自然主义文学传统的影响也不断深化和扩展,对后世的自然史、博物志、自然科学乃至自然哲学的发展都起到了巨大的推进作用。     

浅析希腊罗马神话对英国文学的影响

希腊罗马神话故事对世界文学、雕刻和绘画等产生过巨大影响,对英国文学的影响也是毋庸置疑的。从希腊罗马神话里衍生了许多相关的英语词汇,极大地丰富了英语语言。此外,许多英国诗人和作家都纷纷用神话故事为创作素材,或直接引用神话人物和主题,或把神话故事改编成戏剧等,或在作品中塑造了以神话人物或题材为原型的人物。以希腊罗马神话为原型的英国文学作品不仅极大地加深了英国文学的寓意和内涵,而且丰富了英国文学作品的宝库。     

宋元成都地方文献的历史地理学价值——以《蜀祷杌》、《锦里耆旧传》、《岁华纪丽谱》为例

本文以《蜀椅杌》、《锦里耆旧传》和《岁华纪丽谱》三本书为例,分析了宋元时期成都文献的历史地理学价值。《蜀祷杌》和《锦里耆旧传》记载了前、后蜀成都历史城市地理,四川历史游乐地理、历史灾害地理（地震,水、旱灾等灾害）、历史军事地理（王建取西川,后唐灭前蜀、宋灭后蜀的进军路线）和历史政区地理。《蜀祷杌》还记载了“芙蓉城”的得名由来。《岁华纪丽谱》记载了成都市历史游乐地理。三本书有一定的历史地理学价值。     

金圣叹“锦心绣口”说鉴赏论探究

金圣叹终生致力“六才子书”评点,并形成了以文学作品的审美特征及艺术境界为着眼点的文学批评观——“锦心绣口”说。他强调文学的艺术性及文学中心观。从鉴赏论角度出发,金圣叹“锦心绣口”说中的鉴赏是建立在一定文学艺术接受能力之上的主体自我实现的过程。     

敦煌析产遗嘱文书探微——以族、宗族、家族、民族为视角的解构

对弥足珍贵的敦煌析产遗嘱文献超越浮泛的研究,以专题探微的方式代之以文化的释解,并从民族的视角进行深层追问,不但能使我们鉴别析产遗嘱与分家的不同,而且通过其中富含的文化因子再现中古时代广阔的社会生活画卷,佐证中国古代具有私法意义的遗嘱继承,一窥隐于私契文书背后的民族特质、文化结构、混融的民间信仰与基于民族普遍性的共通原理。     

城市书写如何本土化?——以1980年代以来文学为中心

文学的本土化研究是一个重要且意义深远的课题。但在以往的研究中,文学本土化问题经常被文学的现代化问题遮蔽。1980年代以来城市书写的本土化研究,是进行文学本土化研究的有益尝试。借助地域属性、传统诗性文化等方面对文学中的城市展开的本土化想象,可以突破长期以来现代性指导下的城市文学研究的困境,发掘中国城市在文学中呈像的丰富性与复杂性,拓展当代城市文学研究。     

“德、才、色”主体意识的复苏与女性群体文学的兴盛-明代吴江叶氏家族女性文学研究

与传统的男性立德、立功、立言“三不朽”的人生理想形成对照,明代吴江叶氏家族女性追求“德、才、色”三兼备的主体意识,并且朦胧地追求个性解放,尤其是叶绍袁的夫人沈宜修与其女叶纨纨、叶小纨、叶小鸾等,以出类拔萃的学创作的实绩,在中国古代学发展史上显示出家族女性诗人群体前所未有的优势,也将晚明学解放思想推进了一大步。