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Critic He Ping's new book "The Return of Criticism" is divided into three parts: "Ideological Trends," "Writers," and "Scenes," including more than ten literary and art criticism articles he has published in newspapers and periodicals such as "Literary and Art Controversy," "Contemporary Writers' Review," "Southern Literary Circle," "Zhongshan," "Shanghai Literature," and "Literature and Art Daily" in recent years.
"The Return of Criticism", by He Ping, Yilin Publishing House, December 2021
Over the years, He Ping has worked to "reconstruct literary criticism of dialogue and action." Critics say "no" as a kind of self-demand, but also to face up to the complexity of the literary scene and the necessity of literary action. It is better to sit and talk about it than to drink while standing, so there is "Flower City Attention", there is "Shanghai-Nanjing Twin Cities Literature Workshop", and there is also "Literary Community Book Series" and "Live Literature Series". He Ping is active in different journals for "literary curation", hoping to express his disdain for current Chinese literature through column hosting, which also highlights the aesthetic judgment and literary view of critics. In a word, he aims to continue the practical spirit of criticism since modern literature.
To refuse to breed a bubble of literary criticism, it is necessary to intervene in the literary scene to find problems. Where to intervene? After the resources, tastes, patterns, rhetoric, and style of literary criticism have consciously accepted the transformation and shaping of the college's knowledge production, he Ping's "return to criticism" is not to withdraw from the academy, but to find the possibility of dialogue between college criticism and literary scene. What to discover? In the era of mass media in which ideas and concepts are inevitably fragmented, it is found that critics who can break through walls, travel across borders, and speak out in circles find heterogeneous texts that deviate from aesthetic inertia, that is, "youth" in the aesthetic sense. In a word, he wanted to be "an honest observer, a recorder, a messenger."
He Ping: Critics say "no" as a form of self-demand
"The Return of Criticism" book shadow
China Writers Network: First of all, congratulations on the publication of your new work "The Return of Criticism". Before getting into the specifics, I found the cover of the book interesting: the outer cover of the book was printed with two birds outlined in green lines, and the inner cover simply omitted the text, highlighting the outline of the two birds alone. Do you have anything to say about the moral of the design?
He Ping: That should be the "blue bird". In 2017, I began to host the "Flower City Concern" column of "Flower City", and the opening column was titled "A Messenger, From the Scene of Chinese Literature". Cover creators also agree that literary criticism resembles a bluebird's letter or letter. As for what "Blue Bird" looks like, it is originally from legend, and I don't know if the designer's image has his origin, but this is the meaning.
China Writers Network: "The Return of Criticism" is divided into three sequential parts, "Thought Trends", "Writers" and "Scenes", but I would like to start with the third part. The "Live" section focuses on the overall review of the "Flower City Concern" column you have hosted for five years. Literary "scene" is the field you have worked hardest in recent years, and it is also the heaviest part of the book, after all, without "scene", there is no "return". I noticed that before the establishment of the "Flower City Concern" and the "Shanghai-Nanjing Twin Cities Literature Workshop" in 2017, although you have always paid attention to the literary scene and the topic of young writers, you have not focused as much as you have since, what is the reason for this change in academic perspective?
He Ping: Maybe a little earlier than 2017, at the end of 2013. I can talk a little bit about my literary criticism resume, I have two important time nodes in literary criticism: one is around 1998, and the other is around 2007. In 1998, I was still teaching at the Rugao Normal School in the county. This middle school began in the late Qing Dynasty and has been running the school on its original site for 120 years this year. I began to learn to write literary criticism, and the critic Wang Zheng was very related, he was also teaching at Rugao Normal School at that time, and my earliest literary criticism works were recommended by Teacher Wang to be published in several newspapers and periodicals such as "Wen Theory Newspaper", "Contemporary Literary Circle", "Literary and Art Controversy", and "Appreciation of Famous Works". Unlike my long apprenticeship in writing novels and poetry, when I did literary criticism, I almost went straight into the writing and publishing stages.
In 2007, Jia Mengwei selected a draft for "Zhong Shan" on the topic of "Limitation Theory of Contemporary Writers", and I published "Zhang Wei's Creative Limitation Theory" at that time. It is precisely because of this opportunity that I can try to observe and grasp a writer with a long history of continuous personal writing with a volume of nearly 10 million words. It was also at the end of this year that I began to have a real relationship with Lin Jianfa, editor-in-chief of the Contemporary Writers Review. As we all know, the magazines and literary activities edited by Mr. Lin have his "circle". However, this "circle" is not narrow and self-interested, he is an editor with a sense of literary public welfare. In 2008, I published six literary reviews in the Contemporary Writers Review. In the next few years, until Mr. Lin retired, almost all of my main articles were published in the Contemporary Writers Review. In the meantime, in 2010, the first issue of "Southern Literary Circles" "Critics Today" made my solo album. When I mention this album, I would like to say that Zhang Yanling and Lin Jianfa, the editors-in-chief, have no walls and eclectic support for young critics. In 2013, I had the opportunity to go to Waseda University in Japan for a year to study, because I didn't speak Japanese, and the so-called visit was nothing more than laissez-faire and empty. However, according to the regulations, the visit required a public lecture, which allowed for a concentrated reading of young Chinese and Japanese writers born after the 1970s. The content of the lecture entitled "Media Changes and Late Maturation of the Post-70s" was later compiled and published in the journal "Literature" of Fudan University.
2007 "Zhong Shan" No. 3, "Zhang Wei's Creative Limitations"
After returning to China in 2014, the problem of university titles was successfully solved, which was equivalent to removing a big stone in his heart and being able to do something freely according to his own wishes. I don't remember which meeting I met Zhu Yanling, the editor-in-chief of "Flower City", talking about youth writing, there was a lot of consensus and dissatisfaction, so there was the idea of "Flower City Concern" column. The original intention at that time, today's world, on the one hand, is the so-called global village with convenient transportation and information, on the other hand, the countless spaces, classes and communities that are divided, the whole world is like this, and the inner world of each of us is also like this. With the vastness of the world today, literature should also lead from its own narrowness to its vastness. To this day, I still remember that at that time, the editor-in-chief of Zhu Yanling imagined that this column was: "How do young writers respond to China's problems and reality in a literary way"? To answer this question, of course, we have to go among the writers of our time, so naturally it is necessary to refer to where is the real literary scene of our day?
In fact, as a critic, we must make various judgments about current Chinese literature, but it is worth pondering to what extent those judgments we make can speak to the current Chinese literature in the "full name"? How much do we know about Chinese literature with "full name"? Even the concept of "literature" that we use now must be placed in today's literary scene to be cleansed and reconstructed? How much chinese literature has changed since the end of the last century cannot be fully assessed, and the changes are still unfinished. After nearly two decades of baptism of online new media, national writing has become a "literary" fact that occurs around us every moment. The masses divide the literary territory that was once monopolized by a small number of literary people, and those popular literature that we once thought was not literature, or that it was only of low rank and style, took root and grew among ordinary readers without abandoning itself, and then forced professional readers to face, recognize and name, and the boundaries of literature were repeatedly expanded; at the same time, some of the more extreme and niche literary experiments were also tenaciously practiced, disseminated and appreciated by a small number of people in a small circle. Not only that, but "literature" is diffused into "literature" that is closely related to our daily lives. Therefore, to do "Flower City Attention" is simply to investigate the literary scene of our time.
#1
"Flower City Concern", focusing on "youth" in the aesthetic sense
China Writers Network: Each issue of "Flower City Concern" has a theme or topic, which refines the problems in the current literary scene. This is also in line with the idea of running a magazine since the 1990s, paying more attention to literary heterogeneity and giving more prospects for the future of literature. From the perspective of a journal positioning or literary history, it was successful. As a column host, how did you consistently observe and discover young writers for so long, and how did works that deviate from everyday aesthetic conventions come into your sight? Over the years, have you observed any noticeable changes in the creation or life of young writers?
2007 first issue of "Flower City", "Flower City Concern" opening column (excerpt)
He Ping: As you can see, Flower City Concern has published many exploratory texts by young authors and unfamiliar authors. Since the 1990s, Flower City has been exploring the boundaries that literature may reach in our time, and "Flower City Attention" is a derivation of this tradition. No matter how creatively energetic and courageous the previous generation of writers were, new literature and the new literary era will eventually be handed over to the new literary newcomers. But on the other hand, pure literature or periodical literature has its own operating mechanism and mode of production, and they may also be self-sufficient, closed and exclusive. Simply put, it is the literary cause in the circle - to create the literature we imagine in the circle, and to create our literary interest. Narrow, self-righteous, and self-contained journal interests often give the illusion of living well because of the help of various real forces.
Therefore, the new force of discovery literature of "Flower City" hopes from the beginning that the narrow literary journal circle and the narrow literary circle will colonize the literary territory with a kind of open "literary expansionism". This kind of literary expansionism can be to revitalize and tap existing literary resources, such as new overseas Chinese literature, multi-ethnic literature, drama return to literary periodicals, prose fieldwork, etc.; it can also be an access to emerging literary possibilities, such as network literature, machine-made literature, science fiction literature, and literature's absorption and compilation of other art disciplines such as folk songs, movies, and contemporary art.
As for "deviating from everyday aesthetic conventions", I think that the first is the overall reflection and revision of the may fourth new literary concept established in the sense of literary concepts. Reflection and revision are embodied in the practice of "Flower City Attention", which moves the boundaries of literature and expands the literary territory, which naturally accepts more emerging authors and their texts. As an open literary space, "Flower City Concern" allows various possibilities, diversity and differences to surface together, and eventually "Flower City Attention" has become a column that is no longer limited to young authors, but focuses on discovering the possibility of "new literature". In the sixth year, "Flower City Concern" has not only published the works of post-90s novelists such as Zhou Kai, Wang Suxin, Sansan, Ding Yan, Mr. Slow, Du Li, Xie Qingpi, Yang Zhihan, Yang Fei, Wang Moshu, etc., strange writers such as Li Yuan, Mao Chenyu, Mu Ming, and Tong Mo, as well as directors and musicians such as Wan Ma Tse-dan, Gojo Ren, and Wan Qing, from the oldest author, Alati Asmu, born in 1958, to the works of famous writers after the 60s, 70s and 80s. Why does the column still give people the impression of constantly launching new works by emerging authors? I think the reason is not because of the author's youthful physiological age, but because the text community of "Flower City Concern" constantly outputs new aesthetic possibilities, thus presenting the "youth" in the aesthetic sense.
It should be said that even if individuals write and publish freely on the Internet, publishing, publishing and awarding in the sense of the traditional literary system may at least ensure that good authors will not be buried, and there are so many journal columns, awards and support programs for young people. But overall, the aesthetic creativity of youth literature is not active, or it is not significant enough. Of course, this is consistent with the entire literary ecology, and young people cannot be blamed for writing alone. As for the lives of young writers, I have very little personal contact with them, just look at the circle of friends, their literary communication seems to be quite active, such as a writer's work published, published and awarded, can bring ritual forwarding and praise.
However, I say this to be wary of being a condescending and commanding accuser who spends his time with his elders. What kind of life do real literary youths live? What kind of writing do you do? Can the few young people with bright moments, the very few who benefit, represent the whole of the youth of our time? More young people are hiding in the whispers of the crowd, they are blurred because of their similarity, why are they different? This requires us to be careful to identify and discover. This is why I do "Flower City Concern", and I also jointly launch the "Shanghai-Nanjing Twin Cities Literature Workshop" with Professor Jin Li of the Department of Chinese of Fudan University, and cooperate with Yilin Publishing House to publish the "Live Literature Series" that supports young writers under the age of 35.
In the past six years, more than 100 writers have spoken out in "Flower City" on topics such as the ideal of short story masters, the illusion of place, the science fiction literature on the eve of the singularity era, the drama and playwrights who have been expelled from literature, the country museum, the innocence of creation, the fieldwork of prose, and the literature of machine manufacturing.
China Writers Network: "Flower City Concern" is currently in its sixth year, what feedback have you received? I think that the polite praise or the good reviews are already there for all to see, and everyone wants to hear you share some constructive criticism. In addition, do you have any thoughts and expected adjustments about the future of this column?
He Ping: "Huacheng Concern" has been adjusting, the first three years basically did the work of revising and enriching the territory of contemporary Chinese literature, this kind of correction and enrichment, and the training in literary history research at the graduate level is very related, and the tutor Professor Zhu Xiaojin asked every graduate student to learn to do the work of historical materials. Therefore, "Flower City Concern" is not a column in the sense of literary editing, and literary criticism and literary history research affect the overall design of the column. There are some changes in the "Flower City Concern" in 2020. The six issues selected six "Chinese spaces" in cities, counties, families, townships, worlds and virtual "tree holes". 23 young writers try to enter these spaces from different paths. In the final analysis, "Huacheng Concern" is nothing more than observing the problem consciousness of contemporary Chinese literature at work, the first three years of literary map revision, 2020 youth writing and realistic China (new youth/new literature) design, 2021 for the current Chinese literature problems are all solutions.
"Flower City Concern" has been helped by many friends since its opening in 2017. Each feature is the result of the participation of Flower City colleagues and friends, such as rock and folk topics, and music critics such as Yan Jun, Han Songluo and Ma Jia not only give professional advice, but also help solve the problems of inviting authors and negotiating copyright. Friends such as Feng Junhua, Evil Bird, Fen Lei, Xu Chenliang, Ji Yaya, Li Yuan, and Yuan Ling have recommended excellent writers. Not only that, but the realization of many thematic topics is actually the propositional compositions of critics, such as "Eight Cities", "In the County", "The Ideal of the Short Story Master", "Youth Impact" and "To the Nineties", etc., which are all the possibilities of critics and novelists exploring literature together.
Constructive criticism and even controversy have always existed, such as how to ensure that the ideas of the column host match the author and the text? In fact, the completion of many texts is not ideal, if not published in the "Flower City Concern" column, it may not meet the standards of "Flower City". Moreover, how new literature can be connected to traditional literary journals without violating the harmony, and whether the emphasis and prominence of certain literary tastes, authors and texts will not lead to the neglect and obscuration of another - these issues have been pointed out by many friends.
Since last year, I've wanted to end this column. The reason for this is that they are aware of their limitations. It is difficult for the column to reach this level and move forward even a little; the other is that I still have the prescribed actions in the university at hand, and the major projects of the National Social Science Fund that I preside over are getting closer and closer to the end of the project, and I need to concentrate on this matter. "Flower City Concern" this year focused on finding the path of current literature from the extension line of literary history, and has completed two special topics of "To the Nineties" and "Avant-garde Literature Extension". Let's not talk about the farther future, and do a good job in this direction this year.
#2
The theoretical resources of literary criticism need to be expanded
China Writers Network: The "Writers" section contains five writers' treatises, namely Ah Lai, Chi Zijian, Li Er, Ai Wei, and Qiu Huadong. In the epilogue, you said, "Being a writer 'contemporary critic' is the ideal of many critics, and I also aspire to it. Is this identification more focused on the cognitive conveniences of similar experiences, emotional structures, ways of thinking, etc. contained in similar ages, or can it also be understood as a "contemporary" in the sense of Forrest Gump? Please talk about your thinking about "contemporary critics".
He Ping: I've always been very cautious about theories I'm not familiar with. Be especially vigilant when it is widely said that "contemporaries" must be "agamben". It is not easy to understand "me" in the sense of "contemporary" in the sense of Forrest Gump and contemporary Chinese literature, but at least the sentence "Contemporary is also a strange connection with one's own time, and contemporaryness is both attached to and at the same time distanced from the times" is instructive to me. The writers I have talked about are far more than Ah Lai, Chi Zijian, Li Er, Ai Wei, and Qiu Huadong, and choosing these five writers who have similar experiences, emotional structures, and ways of thinking that are similar to my age may remind myself of "keeping a distance" as a critic. As for whether it is done or not, it is not up to me to decide. This is not so much a "contemporary" in the sense of Forrest Gump as a misreading of Agamben who traveled to China.
The "Writer" section of the book "The Return of Criticism" contains He Ping's five writers' works on Ah Lai, Chi Zijian, Li Er, Ai Wei, and Qiu Huadong.
China Writers Network: Although several writers' treatises do not deviate from your consistent macro-theory style, you also pay attention to the careful reading of the text, especially the discourse and integration of theories, such as the parts that quote Scott, Duzanchi, Arendt and other views are very natural and clear. Obviously, we can use this set of articles to prove that theory in literary criticism is not a problem, how to use theory is. Since the new period, there has been a theoretical baptism stage in the process of modern and contemporary literary scholars, do you have a similar experience? How do you see the role of theoretical consciousness in literary criticism?
He Ping: You may have noticed that I rarely cite literary and art theoretical works. In a sense, I leave this part to my own aesthetic judgment, even if such judgment is sometimes superficial. The so-called theory, I read a lot of sociology, history, anthropology and political science related to China's problems. In the Chinese modern and contemporary literary tradition, writers and times are deeply entangled, so it is difficult to interpret their texts without studying the Chinese reality and Chinese problems in which writers live. To some extent, the study of social and historical criticism is still valid for contemporary Chinese literature. Therefore, as a critic, if you do not know and understand China, why do you say that so-and-so's work is related to Chinese reality? But the problem is that I have little time to use original documents and fieldwork to enter Chinese history and reality, and I can only rely on the support of other disciplines. In this way, the theoretical resources of literary criticism should spill over to the aesthetic and literary theories of close relatives and expand into the larger field of humanities and social sciences.
China Writers Network: Reading the "Ideological Trends" section carefully, I found that you are particularly sensitive to the external motives of literary changes in society, and in different articles, you have expressed your vigilance against the capital, media, marketing and other objects that participate in the reshaping of the literary landscape after the opening of the era of marketization. In this complex ideological environment, literary criticism certainly wants to say "no", but I would like to ask who to say "no" and how to say "no"?
He Ping: When critics say "no", they are not necessarily facing others, they are a kind of self-requirement, a natural result of "judgment", and they are saying "no" to themselves.
China Writers Network: The "Thought Trend" part of the "Second Discussion on Network Literature is Network Literature" article, combined with the two articles you published in "Literary and Art Controversy", you emphasize the need to respect the basic attributes of Internet literature, change the "text worship", pay attention to the "text periphery", I agree. However, at the operational level, online literature is more recognized through the traditional historical logic of support, awards, training, and rankings, on the one hand, reality proves the effectiveness of the so-called "classicization", on the other hand, the new cognitive bias is also covered up through the process of "classicization" dilution. In your vision, will there be another way of evaluating online literature along its "basic attributes"?
He Ping: The online literature defined by capital cannot be just a "literary problem" at least at this stage. Aesthetic stratification and the legitimacy of mass literary consumption confirm that the online literature field is more of a capital competition field, and "aesthetic low" can get more reading population and more realization.
The "classicization" of online literature you said should be established in the framework of new genre literature, and the evaluation system of May Fourth new literature cannot be directly appropriated. Genre literature is not popular literature in the general sense (including network literature), it is an advanced stage in the development of popular literature, and it can also be said to be the "classic" part of popular literature. Good genre literature is the enlightener of the spiritual growth of the nation, so it should carry the values, worldviews and eternal emotional content of the integration of history and the present, local and world as a community of human destiny. Genre literature should have a continuous ability to classify "classes" and create "types". Some of these classes and types are creation, and more are the transformation and reconstruction of existing types of the local and the world. Good genre literature, whose narrative technique is a comprehensive ability. For example, Ma Boyong, his novel is obviously born from the classic narrative prototype of the world type novel of "life and death speed", so it pays attention to the precision and precision of narrative speed and rhythm. Genre literature is different from online cool literature that does not talk about narrative logic, and it is also different from popular literature with ordinary narratives. The nature of the current definition of capital in the pursuit of profit in network literature determines that it chooses the former between rapid cash-out and cultivation type. Because there is a variable and variable in this, that is, the internet literature with incomplete intellectual property rights, the genre is easy to be quickly reproduced. We only need to look at the composition of online literature authors, and the biggest beneficiaries are not necessarily the inventors of a certain type, but the followers. This has led many writers to choose "classes" in a measured manner rather than painstakingly creating "types".
Although the situation of Chinese genre literature today is due to the external business environment, there is an equally noteworthy problem, that is, there are very few individual authors with literary style significance who can continue to write, even if the masterpieces of a certain type of online literature are often three or two, which is not the same as the huge volume of dozens of books abroad. We can blame foreign genre writers for the uneven quality of their personal works, but it is the continuous writing and huge volume that promote the maturity and progress of their genres.
If the national literature education and aesthetic composition have not improved, the "classicization" you are talking about can only be decoupled from the online literary scene first and become an independent criticism and research.
China Writers Network: In your mind, does a good writer need to prioritize the identity of "intellectual" over the identity of "writer"? On the whole, can the identity of "intellectuals" weaken or strengthen the identity of young writers compared with their parents?
He Ping: It depends on how to define "good writers", such as Ma Boyong, Mao Ti and other types of literary writers are considered "good writers"? If you count, "intellectuals/writers" can have "good writers", but with such a slash identity, they are not necessarily a good writer. As a thinker, the writer is a model writer of modern Chinese literature, and if measured by this, it is a fact that the ability of young writers to think and act is weakened. If we think about the future of this literary spectrum, we do have reason to expect writers like "new youth/new writers".
#3
Reinventing the "Literary Criticism" of Our Time
China Writers Network: Mr. Pan Kaixiong commented on the article "What is the "field"? Are you there? It mentions a paradoxical phenomenon of "feng shui rotation" and points out that "the essence of superficial differences is ultimately a question of how to view literary criticism in its entirety and scientifically construct a literary criticism system." In your opinion, if this problem is not solved, is it possible for the next stage of literary criticism to return to "sensibility and fragmentation"? In the past two years, under the new discursive contradictions, the accusations of "academicism" have been somewhat involuntary and have begun to generalize.
He Ping: There is a premise here that needs to be clarified first, that is, how to understand "academic criticism". The appearance of "academic criticism" in the early 1990s was based on a reflection on the literary criticism of the 1980s and the call for a new group of critics, who were "a new generation of critics trained in a strict and systematic academic style, quick thinking, talented, able to flexibly use one or more foreign languages, with solid basic knowledge and multidisciplinary expertise in broadcasting; they both understood tradition but did not stick to the stereotypes of tradition; they studied the West but did not blindly worship and apply them; they were keen to innovate and less conservative and have good literary expression skills; their hard work heralds the rise of a vibrant, new generation of critical groups. This is what I call Chinese academic criticism. In this sense, the academic criticism called for in the 90s is not a substitute for the "non-academic literary criticism" of the 80s. It could even be argued that every '90s "academy critic" had their own "eighties." Now, if "academic criticism" is replaced by the paper production of the CNKI system, this "academic criticism" is no longer the "academic criticism". Therefore, the much-maligned "academic criticism" and the "academic criticism" imagined in the 90s are not the same thing at all. As for "sensibility and fragmentation", it may also be a critical landscape in the era of mass media, you only need to look at the creation talks and quick reviews pushed by the public accounts of various literary journals every day, as well as the ratings of Douban and Dangdang, you know to what extent "sensibility and fragmentation" are. In my imagination, the literary criticism that connects the literary scene and the university is not to return to "sensibility and fragments", but to the synthesis of the origin of the "academic criticism" in the 90s, and recreate the "literary criticism" of our era in today's Chinese reality and Chinese problems.
In 2022, He Ping hosted the "Re-investigation of Phenomenal Texts" column in Novel Review Magazine
China Writers Network: I am concerned that in recent times, you have hosted a new column in "Novel Review" magazine, "Re-investigating Phenomenal Texts", combing through the literary texts that have participated in the construction of "epochality" since the reform and opening up, and have compiled re-survey articles on "Scars", "Open Love Letters", "Love, Cannot Be Forgotten", "The Chronicle of Director Qiao", "People To Middle Age" and other texts, and mentioned in the host's words "Wolf Totem", "Little Times", "Fang Siqi's First Love Paradise" and other works that have appeared since the new century. Combined with your attention to the creation of new media such as "blog posts" and "column texts" in literary media in your new book "The Growth of Writers After the 70s of the Media Revolution in the New Century", I would like to know whether there will be such text forms in the future research objects of the "Re-investigation" column. For example, Yu Xiuhua's poems and Fan Yusu's autobiography first appeared on the Internet, and greatly triggered or participated in the discussion of social issues at that time, and their influence continues to this day.
He Ping: "Phenomenal text" is a special kind of text in the sum of the literature of an era. We often say that there is an era of literature, and the "literature" here may be the most representative of these phenomenal texts, because they are deeply embedded in the middle of the times, and even participate in the "epochal" construction of the entire social development and change. Of course, the phenomenon-level text also pays attention to the narrow literary nature, but it pays more attention to the sense of history and integrity associated with the text and the reader, the text and literary life, the text and the broader social life, etc., so the phenomenon-level text is not equal to our literary classics in general. It is the objectively existing phenomenological texts that preserve the literary memory of different eras and also establish the logic of the evolution of the times in literary history. It is not possible to say that "participation in public issues is an important driving force for phenomenal texts", some phenomenal texts are related to social transformation and national aesthetic psychology, such as the popularity of Jin Yong, Qiong Yao and Sanmao in the mid-to-late 1980s. These new media era texts and writers you speak of will certainly be included in the "re-survey". However, it is worth noting that "re-survey" implies a sense of history of "how to see then" and "how to see now".
He Ping, born in 1968, is currently a professor and doctoral supervisor of the College of Literature of Nanjing Normal University, the chief expert of the National Major Social Science Fund Project, and the deputy director of the Youth Working Committee of the China Writers Association. He is the author of "Essay Talk", "Selected Literary Criticism of He Ping", "Literature of Actors" and so on. At the end of 2021, "The Return of Criticism" was published. The editor-in-chief is "Literary Community Book Series" and "Live Literature Series". In 2017, he co-sponsored the "Shanghai-Nanjing Twin Cities Literature Workshop" with Professor Jin Li of Fudan University, and in the same year, he began to host the "Flower City Concern" column of "Flower City" magazine.
Chen Zeyu, editor of the Literature and History Channel of China Writers Network, was born in Jinan in 1995.