There are | tutors: the five keys to graduate academic innovation and thesis writing, dry goods to see quickly!

Graduate students in the humanities field need to pay attention to the following aspects if they want to carry out academic innovation:

First, we must have an independent academic personality, have a sincere attitude to learn, and have a little more sincere criticism in study and research, and less hypocrisy and blind obedience;

Second, the inexhaustible source of any academic innovation lies in the problems existing in reality at all levels, but excessive discipline anxiety will affect people's attention to real academic problems, so it is necessary to have more awareness of problems and less discipline anxiety;

Third, we must pay attention to the productivity of the method, more method consciousness, less material accumulation;

Fourth, attach importance to the "internal evidence" of learning, more life perception, less discourse borrowing;

Fifth, innovation is important, but it can not be pursued in a hurry, and it is not the ultimate goal of our academic research, academic innovation should be combined with the pursuit of ultimate values and the realm of heaven and earth.

For graduate students, whether they are pursuing professional degrees or academic degrees, there is always some academic research, and for academic research, a very critical point is to carry out academic innovation. Without innovation, academia has no life. Cultivating innovative talents is not only the goal of postgraduate education, but also an important goal of primary school to university education, without innovation, a nation has no hope. The importance of innovation may be understood by everyone, but the key is how to carry out academic innovation? Based on some problems encountered in the teaching and training of postgraduate students majoring in literature and art theory over the years, and combined with some of my own experiences and experiences in studying and administering, the author summarizes the following aspects.

First, a little more sincere criticism, less hypocrisy and blind obedience

Whether academic innovation can be carried out is first of all related to whether it can think independently and whether it can carry out critical thinking. To think independently requires both academic courage and academic sincerity. But sometimes, people may not be able to do that for a variety of reasons. This hinders innovation.

For example, before we read a book, we may already know something about the author, know that this is a master, and first be overwhelmed by his prestige. Pre-set the book he wrote, and what he said, should be correct and unquestionable. Reading in this way is a manifestation of lack of academic courage. Under the influence of this mentality, not only can not think independently, but also it is difficult to find problems. In another case, when we read the books of authoritative scholars, we find that their views on a certain issue may not be new, or even wrong. But because the person who said those words was an academic authority, or a senior or teacher you respected, you knew he was wrong, but you didn't dare or disagree. Sometimes not only do they not dare or do not want to express different views, but even follow him in, which is not only a lack of academic courage but also a lack of academic sincerity. This lack of academic courage and academic sincerity will lead to hypocrisy and blind obedience in academic research, making it impossible for people to think independently and make it difficult to carry out academic innovation.

Therefore, academic innovation first needs to have an independent academic personality, and it needs to have an attitude of "truth" and "sincerity" for learning. To have a reverence for scholarship and to take scholarship seriously, if this is the case, we may prefer to violate academic authority and express academic views that we think are correct. Only in this way with academic courage, academic sincerity, with an independent academic personality, can independent thinking, it is possible to innovate. But academic innovation is not to consciously be innovative for the sake of fame, and it is not possible to deliberately violate authority in order to be famous. We only have to collide with other people's views only for the sake of academic "reasoning", to say it more broadly, for the sake of "truth". However, it should be noted that even if we find that there is indeed a problem with other people's views, we should not criticize others in aggressive or even offensive language, and when we are refuted by others, we must also listen to others' opinions with an open mind and argue them objectively and fairly. In "Xunzi's Correct Name", it is said: "Speak with benevolence, listen with a learning heart, and argue with a public heart." We should encourage ourselves in this way.

Of course, there is also a possible situation that we have no resistance, neither fear anyone, nor do we want to defend anyone, read a lot of books, just have no ideas, no discoveries, or the problem is obviously invisible, which may be related to our lack of critical thinking in "the first place" or "the after tomorrow". In this case, it is necessary to consciously use more brains and not to trust any one assertion. When we see some striking and interesting assertions, we must carefully sort out the author's thinking process and see if he has sufficient evidence and rigorous arguments for reaching this conclusion. If you feel that his evidence is insufficient, that there is a problem with the argument, that there is a conflict with the facts you observe or with the premise of your knowledge, you can try to question critically. Critical thinking can be consciously trained and cultivated. As critical thinking strengthens, the ability to innovate increases.

Second, more awareness of the problem, less "discipline anxiety"

The inexhaustible source of any academic innovation lies in the problems that exist in reality. If there are new problems in reality, someone needs to solve them, and if anyone's research is the first or earlier to pay attention to or even solve new problems, whose academic research will inevitably have originality. Therefore, whether academic innovation can be carried out depends largely on whether the researcher has a keen sense of the problem.

It should be noted that the "reality" mentioned here contains several levels. As far as the art theory major is concerned, it can be divided into three levels, one is the reality of the living world; the other is the reality of art practice activities; and the third is the reality of art theory research. If the former belongs to the level of "things", the latter two can be said to belong to the level of "words". However, no matter which level they belong to, they are the basis and premise on which the research of art theory is based, and they are also the "reality" that research needs to pay attention to. Of these three levels of "reality," the living world is the most basic reality. If a researcher can take the lead in paying attention to the practical problems at this level and trying to solve them, the knowledge he has made may not only make him a pioneering professional theorist, but also an original philosopher and thinker. Mr. Feng Youlan once said that first-class university questions are born from practical problems. Husserl's phenomenology advocates "returning to things themselves", and in the later period, it refers to returning to the "living world" of the previous study. But most of the time we are studying the reality of discourse, not the reality of the living world. As Foucault said, in today's academia there are more books about "books" than about things, and there are more words about "words" than words about things. The reason for this situation is not because there are no problems in the reality of life, but because the problems in the reality of life are too complicated and too heavy, making it difficult for people to bear and grasp. We know that there are many serious problems in the world today. Naturally, there is a serious ecological crisis; as far as people are concerned, there are many mental and psychological diseases. Faced with these problems in the real world, as a researcher, we should also think about whether our research can do anything to facilitate the resolution or improvement of these problems. If Chinese researchers have such a realistic concern and a keen sense of the problem, there are many theories that should perhaps be put forward by Chinese scholars rather than By Western scholars.

Of course, this is not to make students give up books, do not read, only to deal with reality, if so, there is no need to go to "graduate school", what I want to say here is that in order to carry out academic innovation, we must pay attention to the problems existing in reality at all levels. Only by paying attention to the problems in reality at all levels, including those in the living world, can we continue to innovate. For our students, the living world also constitutes the general foundation of all learning, and we should be concerned about the problems existing in the living world, but for graduate students who need to further accumulate experience and knowledge, at this stage, we need to pay more attention to the practical problems in art practice activities and the practical problems in art theory research. In today's Chinese society, with the transformation of economic structure, the development of modern science and technology, the rise of mass media, and the change of people's ideological concepts, the concept of art, the form of art, the creation of art, and the way art is accepted have also undergone major changes, so that we often wonder whether the contemporary art we see can still be called art. If you face the various problems that arise in the art practice activities and respond positively to the challenges, it is possible to propose new art concepts, art theories, or open up new fields of art research.

Indeed, with the changes in the reality of life, with the changes in artistic practice, the reality of aesthetics and art theory research is also changing, and our theoretical concepts and theoretical methods are constantly being updated. However, on the whole, compared with the reality of the living world and the problems that arise in the reality of artistic practice, the innovation of theoretical research is seriously insufficient. For example, the problems that arise in the real world of life or in the practice of literature and art are often not first raised by our scholars in theoretical research, even if these problems are public problems. If you can't ask questions originally, it is naturally difficult to solve problems originally, so it is difficult to innovate theory. The factors that hinder our innovation may be complex, but one of the reasons deserves special attention, that is, a relatively common "disciplinary anxiety".

The so-called "discipline anxiety" refers to a state of anxiety that occurs when researchers cannot find a discipline for their own research or when the boundaries of disciplines that they identify with are broken by others. Researchers generally believe that which discipline people belong to should study the knowledge in which discipline, each discipline has a preset research object, if their own or others study the object does not belong to the researcher's own discipline, or even any existing discipline can not find such a research object, there will be an individual or group anxiety state.

There is also a more frightening and arbitrary manifestation of "disciplinary anxiety", that is, to require any new formulation of others, new research must be a "discipline", otherwise this kind of research will not be established. The result of this anxiety is that even if we find a problem in the real life world, in the practice of literature and art, in the study of aesthetics or art theory, we think that this problem is beyond the scope of a specific discipline, or does not belong to any existing discipline, so we cannot study it, thus missing a good opportunity to ask questions and study problems.

The reason for talking about this point is that it is inspired by the protracted debate between the domestic literary and art research circles, around the aesthetics of literature and art, ecological aesthetics, and art theory as a discipline. In the case of ecological aesthetics, the current domestic ecological aesthetics research has achieved remarkable results, but there are still scholars who propose that "ecological aesthetics" is not established, because ecological aesthetics cannot become a discipline. The author believes that the starting point of academic research is the problem, not the discipline, and we do not "do research for the discipline", but "do research for the problem". Don't always start from the discipline, think that this can't be studied, that can't be studied, and artificially draw a fixed boundary for research. In this day and age, it is almost impossible for humanities and social science research to maintain absolutely clear boundaries. The field of study was not originally like the territory of a state, it had no physical boundaries, and no one had absolute sacrosanct ownership of an academic field. Even if a border is set, it does not mean that others cannot cross it. It is not to say that there should be no sense of discipline at all, but not to let excessive discipline anxiety become a kind of constraint, we should be anxious not whether this problem belongs to the object of study in this discipline, or whether a research is established from the perspective of discipline, but whether our discipline can study this problem, whether this problem is really worth studying academic problems. If we can overcome this excessive disciplinary anxiety, we will find that our research field will be much broader. And the research of that kind of cross-border zone is also more likely to produce innovative results.

We know that Foucault was originally a historian, but one of the central topics he focused on in his later period was the problem of space, the problem of geography. As a historian, why did he pay attention to these issues? The reason was the change in the world of life that prompted him to care about this issue. For in his view, "a great obsession of the century is history" and "the present era may first be an age of space." And clearly believes: "In any case, the anxiety of our time is related to the nature of space, and there is no doubt that this relationship with space is much greater than the relationship with time". To be honest, judging from Foucault's various studies, it is difficult to distinguish which discipline it belongs to. But history, literature, philosophy, art, whatever kind of humanities and social disciplines, can be inspired by his research. An important reason why Foucault became such a highly original thinker may be that he did not start from any fixed discipline, but from a problem, from the problem of the living world, from the problem of academic history to carry out academic research.

Third, a little more method self-awareness, less material accumulation

New perspectives often come from new perspectives. Because what you see is always what you see. Academic vision is different, people's research objects are different, and the "essence" of the thing that people recognize is also different. Therefore, in order to carry out academic innovation, it is very important to update the methodological vision.

Nietzsche has talked about the importance of methodological vision. In Nietzsche's view, the origin of the laws of nature is unknowable, or there is no original, unified, non-contradictory natural law. What we think of as the so-called "essence" is nothing more than various relationships, subjective effects, human beings superficially know the objective world, but human beings ultimately know human beings themselves, and to be more specific, it is only human beings' own vision. He said: "The mirror itself is not something completely different from the nature of things. Rather, it is the essential component of things that develop slowly. This is not to say that Nietzsche's nihilism and agnosticism are correct, but to illustrate the importance of the methodological vision through Nietzsche's words. The method of vision is like a mirror, it is something that is external to the object of study, but in fact, what the object of study is like depends largely on the way it is seen. Opinions are determined by vision. Therefore, the innovation of the viewpoint is directly related to the renewal of theoretical horizons. Therefore, to do learning, we must have a conscious sense of methodology. Methodic consciousness here refers not only to the use of new methods, but also to the formulation of a new method, and method innovation in this sense is more productive than the innovation of ideas. If a new perspective is put forward on a certain issue, it often only affects people's understanding of the problem, but if a new approach can be proposed, it may affect people's understanding of many issues. For example, Marxist methods, phenomenological methods, structuralist methods and psychoanalytic methods are of revolutionary significance for our understanding of the whole world and the entire humanities and social disciplines. Of course, methods and ideas cannot be completely separated, and sometimes, an idea that people put forward has a methodological significance at the same time.

But in any case, the innovation of methodological vision is very important for the innovation of academic research. Although generally speaking, the innovation of academic research is manifested in several aspects of new fields, new viewpoints, new materials, and new methods, due to the development of new fields, the proposal of new viewpoints, and the better use of new materials, they are often inseparable from certain new theoretical methods, so the innovation of methods is of particular significance. Without the effective use of new theoretical methods, sometimes it is difficult to put forward new ideas no matter how much new material is piled up, so it is necessary to say, "Less accumulation of materials, more method self-awareness."

Fourth, more life perception, less words to borrow

The reason why I talk about this issue is because some of the graduate dissertations I have read in the past are full of quotations, and it feels particularly unsmooth to read. I can't see his personal opinion, nor can I see his personal feelings. The purpose of writing the paper citation material is to support their own point of view, is to help themselves speak, rather than speak for themselves, so they can not rely on the step by step quotation of others to promote their own paper, the harm of this is to make the writing not fluent, the second is to let the author's own views drown in the material, the third is to lose an opportunity to express the author's own sense of life, so that the article lacks a soul or spirit, at the same time, it also reduces the uniqueness of the article from the author's personality temperament. Academic innovation must not only have a keen sense of the problem, but also have a new methodological vision, but also let the light of their own life illuminate the material, so that the article will be colorful and make their academic style more distinctive. The same research objects, the same theoretical vision, the same problem concerns, may also write different articles, and the difference between them is the difference in the way individual life feels. Therefore, when doing research, we should have more sense of life and less words to borrow. With their own life perception, they constantly dye the material and inject soul into the material.

Everyone's life feeling is unique, the way of thinking about problems is different, and the words spoken are also different, so the individual's life experience and life perception are also a source of creativity.

In fact, not all innovative ideas in doing research come from the accumulation of materials, and sometimes there are some intuition or inspiration based on life experience or life experience, allowing us to get an innovative view in a flash. Speaking of experiential feelings, it may be more appropriate to talk about it in conjunction with my own academic experience.

The title of my master's thesis is "Transcendence and Return——— the aesthetic meaning of "language is not formed", and this paper proposes several concepts: one is "language is not formed", one is "language inertia", and the other is "language reversibility". Two of these concepts, "linguistic inertia" and "language unformed", do not originate first from the author's reading of theoretical works, but from my own experience of language. The author's college thesis was written "Language Symbols and Aesthetics", at first I read the book for a long time, I couldn't move my hands, and then one day I decided to start writing, and suddenly found that once I started, I couldn't stop the car. At this time, it suddenly feels that the flowing language is like driving a car, it is "inertia", if it is suddenly interrupted, like a violent brake, it will feel uncomfortable. For "language inertia", only one sentence was mentioned in that undergraduate graduation thesis, and if you write too much, it will be off topic. Later, when he studied for a master's degree, he wrote a course paper "Literary Beauty Analysis ——— The Inertia and Dynamics of Language in Thesis", in which the problem of language inertia was played and discussed. In the process of writing this course paper, it feels like language is constantly gushing out, and language has maintained a tendency to extend forward, as if it can never be finally completed, so here, the author mentions the concept of "language is not formed". This concept later became the subtitle of my master's thesis, which, together with "linguistic inertia" and "linguistic reversibility," constituted the core idea of that master's thesis. Later, the main content of this master's thesis was published in literary criticism. One paper was titled "The Reversibility of Studying Language in a Trial Paper" and the other was titled "A New Theory of Inertia in Literary Language". If there is anything innovative about these ideas, it is honest to say that the source of these views is first and foremost based on the personal life experience of language.

We believe that everyone has the experience of life, and those flashy views of some artistic and cultural phenomena may have experienced it, and the key is to cherish it, seize it, let it slowly ignite as a fire, and finally emit a brilliant fire, illuminate other dark areas in our minds, and finally connect the seemingly scattered things into one. These experiences, experiences, can be regarded as "internal evidence" of learning. Because our inner experience can prove its existence, can feel its existence. The point of view drawn from experience may not be able to find a peer to help us speak for ourselves at the beginning, but if we feel very strongly about a problem, or if we continue to have such feelings, feelings can also be "profound theorists", "feelings" can also directly put forward an important correct point of view, and we will eventually find the materials to support it and prove it. This requires us to be a person with a heart when reading, and when we find similar materials, we can accumulate records at any time. These valuable materials are the "external tests" of those "internal evidences." Innovation requires both "internal evidence" and "external test".

Nietzsche once said, "What guides a scientific exploration genius is the right hunch." What he sees is the possibility that has not yet been fully supported." "Endless experiments and data gathering, while conclusions can be quickly drawn on the basis of a few examples. This is even according to Nietzsche's view that man also exists in linguistics." If you want to carry out theoretical innovation, you can't just rely on learning theory and learning concepts, but also pay attention to drawing creative inspiration from art, from metaphorical thinking, and from intuitive thinking.

Fifth, less hasty success, more ultimate value pursuit

As mentioned earlier, academic innovation is crucial for academic research, but what should be said here is that innovation is important, but it cannot be pursued in a hurry, and it is not the ultimate goal of our academic research. Academic research cannot be innovated for the sake of innovation alone, and innovation should be combined with the pursuit of value. All research should make our world a better place and make it better to exist in this world, otherwise there is no need for research. But in today's era of "post-humanism" or ecological civilization, it seems that it is not enough to say that "people" can better exist in this world, and the ultimate goal of academic research is not only to let us, the human species, better exist in this world, but also to let other life, other species and us exist in this world, and even not just let all living beings exist better in this world, but should let all existents, including those "things" that seem inanimate. All better together in this world. If this is done, it is what Heidegger calls "poetic dwelling." In the eyes of many people, poetic inhabitation is to let human beings have a beautiful home. But Heidegger's "dwelling" is not a purely anthropological concept, it points to the existence of man and all beings in the "home of existence.". The truth of existence is not only to allow people to attain true existence, to exist in "unmasked" and "clear", but to enable people and all other beings to "be what they are" and to enter together into a unified, "unshelded being whole", thus achieving a kind of "world game" or "cosmic dance". Only in this way can man's dwelling be poetically inhabited."

Heidegger's idea of poetic inhabitation is similar to the "realm of heaven and earth" pursued by traditional Chinese philosophy. Zhuangzi once said: "The heavens and the earth are born with me, and all things are one with me" ("The Theory of Qi Things"). Mr. Feng Youlan also once divided the realm of life into four levels: the natural realm, the utilitarian realm, the moral realm and the universe or the realm of heaven and earth. The "realm of heaven and earth" or "realm of the universe" is not immoral, it simply expands the scope of moral concern, allowing one to go beyond the anthropocentric position as much as possible to achieve a larger cosmic whole, so that human beings can do not only for the benefit of human society, but also for the benefit of a larger whole, for the sake of "the interests of the universe." This state of caring for the whole universe is the highest realm, and this kind of morality that cares for the whole universe is the greatest morality, and this morality is what people now call "ecological ethics." This shows that Chinese and Western ideas are connected in the highest part. Our academic innovation should be combined with this highest goal of Chinese and Western philosophy, this ultimate value pursuit, this realm of heaven and earth, and the realm of the universe.

This article is reprinted: Educational Literature Jun University Humanities, Author: Zhao Kuiying, Professor and Doctoral Supervisor of the Academy of Arts of Nanjing University. The original article was published in Graduate Education Research, No. 3, 2018. Due to space constraints, references and parts of this article have been omitted, so please consult the original text if necessary.

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