Editor's Note
Where does the disciplinary dynamics of contemporary Chinese literature come from?
Text | Cai Xiang
In recent years, the discipline of contemporary Chinese literature has developed greatly under the impetus of many teachers. In short, the disciplinary efforts of contemporary literature have made our research begin to get rid of the overly spontaneous, too casual, and too superficial rhetoric of the past, and become more rigorous, more rational, and carefully handle various materials, and develop in the direction of refinement. At the same time, in the process of research, various disciplinary problems have gradually formed and entered the process of research. The development of discipline depends on the formulation and formation of disciplinary problems, so disciplinary problems are always important. These disciplinary problems not only make disciplines possible, but also open up different academic research fields, so-called refinement, often closely related to these disciplinary problems. At the same time, it also makes academic research require division of labor and cooperation within the discipline because of refinement. In recent years, the most important achievement of the discipline of contemporary literature may be the rise of contemporary literary historiography. Through the efforts of many scholars, many historical materials have been excavated one after another. The so-called defamiliarization of contemporary literature is precisely based on these rediscovered historical materials that it is possible to gradually take shape. And in the process of this defamiliarization, changes, and some even subvert, many of our pre-existing impressions of contemporary literature. At the same time, after this disciplinary effort, we have also begun to initially form our own epistemology and methodology, which is so-called reasonable and well-founded, and is becoming a common style of speech. Of course, this effort to discipline has also made academia a profession, and I think there is nothing particularly wrong with this. A good professional habit can change our pompous atmosphere, and academic research sometimes requires a "craftsman" spirit. Therefore, without discipline, sometimes the so-called "problem science" will be empty.
The author of this article, Cai Xiang's work "Revolution and Narrative: Chinese Socialist Literature and Cultural Imagination", is the 2010 edition on the left and the 2018 edition on the right
Of course, the reverse is also true, without the intervention of problematic scholarship, discipline, especially excessive discipline, will also bring some problems. These problems mainly include: when the division of labor becomes more and more meticulous, a certain holistic vision may also be gradually lost; the cultivation of professional habits depends on a certain "craftsman" spirit, but the excessive promotion of technology often means the loss of power behind technology. Discipline, on the one hand, is a method of intensive academic production, on the other hand, it is more manpower investment, so it often causes the "involution" tendency of the discipline. The involution of disciplines, the result of formation, is the stacking of bed frame houses, not the innovation of disciplines, stifling, is the creativity of ideas, and the impulse to explore. Because of the discipline, many stereotypes will be formed, and these stereotypes, including methods, extremists, will form the so-called "family law". Many scholars began their academic careers by challenging the rules of the discipline, but when they were gradually recognized by the academic community and became the "legislators" of their disciplines, they also began to formulate the so-called disciplinary rules. I don't know, whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. What I know is that this is almost an inevitable trend, an inevitable trend of discipline. Therefore, the extreme development of discipline has led to a trend of literature over quality, which is almost rigid disciplinary order.
● Other representative works of Cai Xiang
What is even more worrying is that in the current academic system, discipline is easily absorbed by the system and further alienated. At this time, academia is not only a profession, but also a "business", and scholars become businessmen, pursuing rich profit returns. And who can resist this lucrative return on all the time?
We can see that when a discipline is too mature and too disciplined, it must be gradually weakened, and when the vigorous creativity gradually fades, what remains may be mediocrity all over the place. I think none of us want to see such a discipline.
Therefore, while we emphasize discipline, we may also emphasize and look for an anti-disciplinary dynamic; while we emphasize disciplinary issues, we may continue to introduce the problematic academic vision, which was once the disciplinary characteristic of us, that is, contemporary Chinese literature.
Literature is an art of seeking and presenting truth, and in this sense, literary studies are actually difficult to be completely tamed by the so-called discipline, especially in contemporary Chinese literature. Of course, it is difficult to say what is truth, and everyone is different, but it is precisely the debate about what is truth that constitutes one of the important characteristics of contemporary literary research. What we are trying to do may lie in when and what kind of words are considered the truth, and at what time, what kind of truth is challenged or even subverted. The never-ending questioning and search for truth is the true meaning of our work.
From the moment it was born, contemporary literature was fatally entangled with history, society, and our existence. Contemporary literature, therefore, cannot be completely subordinated to the rigid university system, which is its characteristic. It is always evolving, the text is always in a state of relative instability, and as a result it is constantly activated, meaning is constantly being produced. In fact, I am not particularly in favor of hastily delineating a lower bound on contemporary Chinese literature. This is not necessarily beneficial to the discipline. What's so bad about making contemporary literature always open to the context of the present moment of our existence, and allowing new ideas and artistic experiences to pour in?
Several editions of "History of Contemporary Chinese Literature"
Contemporary literature is a living art, and this is the fundamental feature of our discipline, and what we need is to respect this feature, rather than hastily turn it into a dead science. When I say that contemporary Chinese literature is a living art, it is because "contemporary" has always been alive.
Because the "contemporary" has always lived, we cannot be separated from the concrete socio-historical context, from our experiences and sensibilities that have always been alive, and still less from the problems that haunt us. How to face and explain these problems constitutes the purpose of our work. Otherwise, why should we study contemporary literature? And among these many questions, what we always ask is our "contemporary", our republic, where did it come from and where it might go? The so-called changes between ancient and modern China and the West are precisely the "contemporary" and constitute the entire development of these seventy years. The characteristics of contemporary times are precisely that they are not ancient, not modern, not chinese and not Western. What we have to deal with is not only the successful experience of the Chinese revolution, but also the setbacks that need to be handled cautiously. Some of these setbacks come from the outside, while others are rooted in itself.
In this sense, the anti-disciplinary drive is precisely for the better development of the discipline. Literary research, in its fundamental sense, is still how to face literary texts, the collection of historical documents, in the final analysis, is also to better open the text, rather than putting the cart before the horse. Therefore, when we emphasize the openness of disciplines to the outside world and to problematic scholarship, in fact, it is precisely the effort to keep the text in a state of eternal openness, and the openness of the text can lead to countless topics worth discussing. Frankly speaking, due to the emergence of universities, the meaning of the classics is no longer just "a hundred readings are not tired", but more likely, perhaps "a hundred words are not tired". The importance of interpretation has become the meaning of the topic of literary studies today.
When we introduce a problematic academic vision, there is only one purpose, that is, how to interpret the text more deeply, not only to interpret what it is written, but also to interpret the parts that it does not say but hides in the depths of the text. For example, when we think about this era, the "contemporary" in which we live, we sometimes wonder, what is the most important logic of this era? Perhaps, it is the so-called class flow, which strictly speaking refers to the upward class flow, not the other way around. This flow, which inspires ambition and desire, also triggers anxiety and depression. With this line of thinking, when we return to the 1980s, some issues can be revisited. For example, for 40 years, we have become accustomed to comparing the 1980s to May Fourth. But have we ever thought about the differences between them? Why did the downward movement of China's intellectual class promoted by the "May Fourth" not reappear in the 1980s, on the contrary, the so-called individual, the so-called individual priority, was actually quietly stratified. Some classes express strong demands for interests through the concept of "individual", while the voices of other classes disappear from the text. Isn't the reason for this worth thinking about? This is not to say that literature leads to the actual development of society, and literature does not have such a great power, but it is also an indisputable fact that literature participates in shaping the emotional structure and even the conceptual form of an era. The fact that this is often the fact that we have become accustomed to many things and are not surprised.
Therefore, the introduction of problematic scholarship may break our thinking inertia, or even academic inertia, and what we want to reconstruct is a new academic paradigm.
However, this problem should not be a simple transplantation, all specific problems are hidden in the text, and they grow within the text. The peculiarity of literature lies in the fact that it presents truth in a sensual paradigm, which makes its form colorful and complex. Our attitude can only be to seek truth from facts, not to put ideas first. In the past four decades, the academic community has formed many new academic common sense, and many of these new common senses are constructed by us personally. Questioning and breaking down this new common sense may be one of our important tasks ahead. Theory leads us into the text, but the problems presented by the text may challenge our existing theories, and only by realistically meeting this challenge can we create a new theory. And so on, and so on.
And our methodology, only in this kind of problematic scholarship care, can be constantly destroyed and constantly reconstructed. Only in this way can our discipline always be vibrant. For example, when we have become accustomed to discussing texts from the perspective of social history, is this still feasible if we enter the 80s? Because it is precisely the literature of this era that begins to take on the posture of challenging social history, what are the reasons hidden behind it, what are the problems that are presented, where is the meaning, and what do we support or oppose? In the entanglement and entanglement of such a problem, it is possible to adjust or recreate our research methods. In a sense, what we challenge and oppose is always ourselves.
We should open two doors, one door leads to the inside of the discipline, the disciplinary problem is always important; and the other door, to the world outside the discipline, we want to introduce that light into our discipline. Therefore, there is no contradiction between discipline and anti-discipline, the so-called big picture, small start, it is unified in our search for truth. In this regard, Teacher Hong Zicheng played an exemplary role.
Teacher Hong Zicheng's works: "Materials and Annotations", "Problems and Methods"
For us, academia is not only a profession, but also a career. Especially for my generation, so-called scholarship is just a way to seek the truth. Our writing is devoted to a higher purpose, which is the search for truth. We are always on the road to the truth, a lifetime of trek.