The action critic | He Shaojun, who intervened in the literary scene

"The Return of Criticism"

Author: He Ping

Publisher: Yilin Publishing House

Publication date: 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.

Activist critics who intervened in the literary scene

——Reading He Ping's "The Return of Criticism"

He Shaojun

He Ping is a very serious literary critic, no matter what kind of occasion, as long as it is to discuss literature, I have never seen He Ping have the slightest sloppiness. His articles are also very serious, even if it is a small judgment, he must make full preparation of information and theory. The Return of Criticism is a collection of criticisms he recently published, and this book bears witness to his seriousness. I didn't expect that he would spend nearly a year compiling this collection. Obviously, which article to include, how to arrange and combine the articles, and what ideas to convey through this book, he has been carefully considered and deliberated. This is not a simple collection of articles, it reflects He Ping's serious thinking on the current problems of literary criticism and the actions taken to solve the problems of literary criticism, this is a book of reflection on literary criticism, but also a book of action.

He Ping is a university professor. At present, the most active in the field of literary criticism is the "college criticism" composed of scholars engaged in the teaching of literature in universities, who make contemporary literary criticism more standardized, but also more theoretical and academic. He Ping's literary criticism also has such advantages. But he was not complacent about it, but worried about the negative effects of the academy's criticism. He believes that because of the academic system and other reasons, academic criticism has turned literary criticism into pure academic research, and it is more and more far away from the literary scene. Such literary criticism has no power. He maintained sufficient vigilance in his practice of literary criticism, and consciously took the initiative to intervene in the literary scene and participate in literary activities, so that literary criticism could directly face the moving literary speech. This book is a transcript of his involvement in the literary scene.

He Ping's judgment on the current problem of literary criticism is very pertinent, and what is even more valuable is that he has found the correct way to solve this problem and has personally achieved results. In this book, there is a special series called "Scene", which is the text he has written in the "Flower City" magazine for several years, which is the host of "Flower City Attention". From these words, not only is there a sharp spark of thought, but also a clear record of how He Ping acted in the literary scene. Literary criticism in his ideas means not only writing, but also action, and he is an action-oriented literary critic. He Ping has created many theories about why literary critics should act, for example, he said that literary criticism should also "deal with the relationship with the literary scene" in the same way that "social science research emphasizes fieldwork and hands-on action and practice". Another example is that he put forward the concept of "literary curation", believing that literary critics should learn from art curators and "more consciously intervene in the literary scene and discover new growth points in contemporary Chinese literature" through the activities of "literary curation". When hosting the "Flower City Concern" column, He Ping appeared as a literary curator, he was like an active liaison, facilitator and sharer in literary field activities, rather than being a literary evangelist like previous literary critics. When I read the article in the "Flower City Concern" section, it was as if I was traveling through a large forest composed of time and space of contemporary literature, and He Ping was like a skilled guide to guide us to see a surprising and different scenery in the forest. The dozens of topics presided over by He Ping basically overflow the clichés of the criticism circle, completely capture the new phenomena emerging in the literary scene, and have an intrinsic relationship with traditional topics, such as literary imagination, the limitations of intergenerational descriptions, young writers and hometowns, the fieldwork of prose, literary frontiers and multi-ethnic writing, the expansion of literature to other artistic disciplines, world time zones, literary tribes and cross-border travel, and so on Each topic is a target of criticism set by He Ping specifically for the problem of literary presentness and sense of scene, and he is targeted and hits the bullseye!

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.

(He Shaojun, vice president of the Chinese Contemporary Literature Research Association and distinguished professor of Shenyang Normal University, has long been engaged in the criticism and research of modern and contemporary Chinese literature.) ）

Editor: Deng Jiefeng

Second instance: Liu Ya

Third trial: Chen Tao, Wang Yang