1st Edition

The “Historicization" of Contemporary Literature

By Cheng Guangwei Copyright 2025
228 Pages
by Routledge

228 Pages
by Routledge

228 Pages
by Routledge

This book provides a concise introduction to the intellectual trends in contemporary Chinese literature from the 1950s to the 1990s and the influence of overseas Sinology. The turbulent period of the second half of the 20th century in China witnessed a significant societal shift from a revolutionary to an economic focus. This transformation introduced and stimulated various ideas, reshaping... Read more

Part I The Philosophy of Chinese Literary History  1. Historical Retrospection, Literary Imagination, and the “Participants”: Examining the Understanding of the 1980s through Reading Zha Jianying’s Interviews in the 1980s  2. How We Interpret History Chronologically: Problems Implicit in the Study of “Seventeen Years Literature” over the Past Decade  3. The Origin of New-Period Literature  4. Revisiting the May Fourth Movement in the 1980s: Supplementary Discussion on the Issue of “Contemporaneity” in the Study of Modern Chinese Literature  Part II The Sociology of Chinese Literary History  5. The “Literary Sociology” of Chinese Literary Research in the 1980s  6. The Issue of “Referentiality” in Chinese Literary Research  Part III The Produced Chinese Literary History  7. A History of Modern Chinese Fiction and the Study of Modern Literature in the 1980s  8. Theory of Literature and Modern and Contemporary Chinese Literature  9. From the Hsia Brothers to Leo Ou-fan Lee and David Der-wei Wang: A Study on Modern Chinese Literature in the United States and Modern and Contemporary Literature  10. The “Reinterpretation” Trend and Historical Transformation: Discussing Tang Xiaobing’s Reinterpretation: Popular Art and Ideology and Other Works  11. Literature, History, and Methodology: An Interview with Cheng Guangwei      

Biography

Cheng Guangwei is Distinguished Scholar and Chair Professor at the School of Literature, Renmin University of China, and the vice president of the Chinese Contemporary Literature Research Society. He is a leading scholar in literary criticism and the history of contemporary Chinese literature.