Editor's Note
In order to vigorously recommend excellent works, China Writers Network specially opened the "No. 10 Conference Room" column, focusing on those new literary works that have received widespread attention or have not been fully valued, inviting young and middle-aged writers and critics to participate in the commentary, collecting special comments, news dynamics, in-depth dialogue, creative paths and other relevant information, reading and discussing with readers, and striving to comprehensively present the charm of the works from a rich perspective.
In the eighth issue of the total in April 2022, the "Conference Room Ten" column of China Writers Network recommended He Ping's commentary collection "The Return of Criticism". The special topic is based on the three parts of the book, "Ideological Trends", "Writers" and "Scene", collecting relevant interviews and commentaries, and specially invited He Shaojun, Xu Chenliang, Li Wei, Li Denan and other scholars to comment. Over the years, He Ping has devoted himself to reconstructing literary criticism of dialogue and action, present as an observer, a recorder, and a messenger, continuing the practical spirit of criticism since modern literature, and facing up to the complexity of the literary scene and the necessity of literary action.
(Moderator of this issue: Chen Zeyu)
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.
"The Return of Criticism"
He Ping
Yilin Publishing House
December 2021
Synopsis
"The Return of Criticism" is divided into three series: "Ideological Trends", "Writers" and "Scene".
"Ideological Trends" is an exploration and reflection on Chinese literature in the era of reform and opening up, especially in the twenty years of the new century, involving literary issues such as the overall view of Chinese literature in the era of reform and opening up, literature and intergenerational, literature and new media, world literature and Chinese experience, youth writing and public life, and multi-ethnic literary communities.
"Writer" is a series of reviews of writers' works. The five writers, from Alai, born in 1959, to Qiu Huadong, who was born in 1969, all became famous in the 1990s and are "contemporaries" in a broad sense. They were once named the "New Generation" and remain the most dynamic part of Chinese literature today.
"Live" is a private literary archive. From 2017 to 2021, Flower City Concern has been doing it for five years, a total of thirty issues. This is a "return to criticism" in the practical sense, hoping to reconstruct the dialogue between the academy's criticism and literary scene, discover the new power of literature, and let the possibilities and differences of contemporary Chinese literature surface on the surface.
Featured reviews
He Shaojun: Activist critic involved in the literary scene
As an activist literary critic, He Ping's action is not only prominently reflected in hosting columns for the magazine and organizing literary activities, but also runs through his entire critical writing, so in the two major parts of the book, "Ideological Trends" and "Writers", he also maintains his sense of intervention and problem awareness of the literary scene. For example, he can put forward insights that are different from people's usual cognitions of literary local narratives, online literature, and literary communities, because these insights are based on his investigation and comparison of a large number of literary media and literary activities. He Ping said that the intervention of critics in the literary scene is actually an important tradition of modern Chinese literature. He saw his involvement in the literary scene as "a tribute to the critics of this literary criticism tradition." But it is undeniable that this literary tradition has gradually been ignored by the current critical circles, and it is in this context that I would like to strongly recommend He Ping, as an activist critic, and his "Return of Criticism" that is deeply involved in the literary scene.
Xu Chenliang: The ambition and call of "returning to the field to learn"
The operational process of "literary curation" also echoes the statement in the article "Returning to the Scene: Reconstructing the Literature of Dialogue and Action" - "to organize the literary logic of our times, to micro-develop the aesthetic new quality of our times and to name them". Although He Ping himself does not like to use the fashionable terminology of Western literature as some academic critics, I still want to make an "over-interpretation" here, comparing his critical approach with the "cognitive mapping" proposed by Frederick Jameson. The similarity between the two is that they both hope to rediscover the sense of direction in the fragmented space, find out the clues of the association through local surveys, and draw new maps in the ever-changing multiple combinations, so as to present the overall structure and logic that is difficult to describe directly. The metaphor of "mapping" has long been used in the field of literary criticism, but it still needs to be analyzed when it is implemented into specific programs. The strategy of "cognitive mapping" itself involves skepticism about existing cartography and its cognitive devices, rather than the blind optimism of filling in every gap on the map, as was the case in the Age of Discovery.
Li Wei: The Return of Criticism: Reconstructing the Action Archive of "Literature"
This is not so much a "static" collection of literary criticism essays as an archive of literary action that faces and responds to the new experience of literature since the new century. The book reflects many new literary phenomena such as new media literature, online literature, ethnic minority literature, and intergenerational literature in a timely manner, and conducts new reflections on the internal history and individuality of literature, public relations life and private space, cities and places, times and intergenerational issues combined with the writer's works, and conducts a "literary curatorial" overview of the literary scene in the new century. In fact, "reconstructing literature and great literature, reconstructing literature and intellectual circles, and reconstructing the connection between literature and the entire vast society" is the core of the book. On the one hand, there are expressions of tension: the solemnity of literary standards and the escape of new experiences, the penetrating power of aesthetics and the creativity of the phenomenon of coarseness ... On the other hand is the establishment of an effective dialogue: based on the fieldwork that arrives at the literary scene and the practical basis of "on the spot", each article asks questions and engages in polyphonic discussions.
Li Denan: Critics' ideals and sense of reality
After reading "The Return of Criticism", my biggest personal feeling is that this is a collection of reviews that can see the ideals and realism of critics. The analysis of literary trends in the book, the interpretation of writers' works, and the general evaluation of the "Flower City Concern" column may all see He Ping's ideas or ideals for literature, criticism, literary system and many other aspects. Although He Ping did not agree with the academic trend of criticism, he did not completely oppose academic criticism. Instead, his criticism seeks to reach the depth and height that college criticism can reach. He believes that writing should be difficult writing, and criticism should also be difficult criticism. ...... When the critic steps out of the academy and plays the role of a journal host, the critic is both an evaluator and partly a producer of content, and his discourse practice inevitably has the color of left and right hand fighting. The gaps between ideals and reality may either make the critic's discursive practice appear inconsistent or productive—it is in such a situation that the sense of reality is generated, and the opportunity for the critic to continue to improve himself and the critical discourse to truly exert its practical effect is formed.