Zhu Jing, who has an attitude |: The writing of the Perch Academy still craves dialogue and exchange of various voices

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Among the many writers today, college teachers who have undergone complete academic training are a force that cannot be ignored. The unique advantages of the profession liberate the body and mind in a sense, allowing them to have more time to engage in writing, and professional attributes such as reading, teaching, and appraisal also create conditions for them to walk on the scene of creation. The composite identity of teachers, scholars, and writers makes the practice of this writing group generally humanistic, forward-looking and exploratory. In the era of new media, compared with the over-commercialization and entertainment tendencies of the increasingly prosperous mass culture, their non-professional writing has a more independent character and pursuit, which may be a kind of writing that can be used as a reference and is close to the ideal state of writing.

The second issue of the column "With Attitude" focuses on the topic of "literary writing in the vision of the college", invites a number of young and middle-aged writers and critics who are active in colleges and universities to participate in the discussion, and through observing and sorting out the study and cultivation and creative practice of the writer group with complete academic training and academic background, radiates an indispensable link in the current writing ecology, in order to link reality with a clear point of view and form inspiration.

——Column host: Du Jia, Li Yingjun

Phase II

How far away is the "ideal writing"?

——The character and value pursuit of writing in the perspective of the college

Zhu Jing, Doctor of Literature, is a visiting scholar at Waseda University and currently teaches at the Faculty of Letters of Nanjing Normal University. He has published a collection of novels, such as "Such as Eaves Drops". Won the 7th Purple Mountain Literature Award of Jiangsu Province.

China Writers Network: Among the current groups of writers, there is a group that has undergone complete academic training and has been engaged in teaching and research in universities or research institutions for a long time, while also carrying out literary creation. Most of their identities are a combination of full-time teachers and part-time writers, and they are also teachers, writers, scholars and other multiple identities. In your opinion, how do the multiple identities possessed by this group affect their writing?

Zhu Jing: Writers writing at university is an important tradition of modern Chinese literature. There are many reasons for the occurrence of new literature on May Fourth, one of which is that the writers of new literature are almost all modern intellectuals, and the occupations of modern intellectuals are often in universities and publishing institutions, from Peking University to the later Southwest United University. Part of the reason why we now emphasize the academic status of writing writers in universities is that after 1949, the professional writer system of the Writers Association formed a new tradition of "professional writer writing". After the 1980s, the tradition of writing at universities slowly recovered, such as east China Normal University at that time. In addition to the group of university writers, there are also some writers scattered in various universities, such as Ge Fei, Yan Zhen, Liu Ke and so on. At Nanjing Normal University, where I work, there are also novelists lu yang and Guo Ping. Until the new century, with the construction and development of the university creative writing profession, it was common for writers to teach, do research and write at universities. Universities provide writers with a relatively free writing environment, and at the same time, when writing at universities, writers naturally participate in literary production with their literary education. Their multiple identities first influenced the ecology of university literary education, and then their writing. But I don't think that writing in college will form a unified stylized college writing, but writers like Zhang Ming, Wang Yao, etc. who are engaged in professional literary research and also write may have a stylistic impact, but they also need to be analyzed on a case-by-case basis.

China Writers Network: From the perspective of creative standpoint, academic writers are different from professional (professional) writers and are different from ordinary non-professional writers, engaged in non-professional writing with academic background, academic training and standardization. Please talk about the state of academic writers' creation based on your own experience and creative experience?

Zhu Jing: As I said earlier, college is a relatively free place suitable for writing. Unlike professional writers, most writers who write in college come into contact with students and can harvest the reading reactions of different readers at the first time. Moreover, writers who write in colleges, especially those who teach literature courses, often need to study the works of their peers in different places in different eras and places on a daily basis, and may constitute a reference dimension for individual writing. Similarly, in the process of selecting a writer's work, it is possible to return to the writer's writing.

As far as I am concerned, there is one aspect of the subject matter of short story creation that focuses on women and families, and is a "vulnerable" subject. In the writing class, I studied A· S. Byert's work, I noticed, is very inspiring in her approach to similar subjects. Byrth's the Story of Matisse draws on three of Matisse's paintings to tell three stories related to art, as well as descriptions of women's confusion, repression, hurt, and imagination in specific situations. The narrative of life makes women's emotional experience concrete, and the rich meaning of the artwork expands the space of thematic content, extending it to thinking about many propositions such as art, life and human nature.

China Writers Network: A college writer once said, "I write novels with a responsible attitude toward art, and I basically don't think about selling well. Being true to reality and being true to my inner voice is my principle, and I will not change my writing attitude due to market considerations", and many academic writers have practiced the independent character of writing throughout their lives. In your opinion, what is the impact of professional evaluation and market feedback on the writing of academic writers? Do these evaluation mechanisms work as well as outside the College?

Zhu Jing: In the era of marketization and mass media, it is almost impossible for a writer not to write in it, and writer writing is only a link in the entire literary production process, and the work must eventually reach the reader through the links of publication, publication and marketing. The key is how to get along with the market and the media, how to maintain the independence of writers in the era of marketization and mediaization, and the so-called independence is not the independence of closed-door doctrine. As for professional reviews and market feedback, you don't care if it all happens and exists. In a highly developed media society, even if you live in a college, it is almost impossible to block all outside sounds. The ideal state should be dialogue and exchange of various voices, of course, without excluding the existence of conflict. True independence should exist in this field of all kinds of noise. As for the outside of the academy, there is also dialogue and consultation between various voices.

When talking about the literary scene in the 90s, Li Tuo said, "The era of mass consumption has arrived, culture is becoming a form of consumption, and the writing of serious literature cannot but face the challenge of consumer culture in the face of these, cannot but attach importance to the new literary environment composed of 'the masses', and cannot but reconsider the relationship between oneself and readers." At the same time, he also pointed out that pure literature should seek nourishment from the richer tradition of novel rhetoric, including the sinking of Western classical novel techniques to popular literature in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, including the Chinese tradition of note-taking and chapter-style novels, not limited to the system created by modernists in the twentieth century.

China Writers Network: From the perspective of literary creation practice, academic writers generally have profound academic accomplishment, does this provide more possibilities for the literary exploration of this group? Professionalism is generally seen as a strong support, but at the same time, does this constitute a constraint on the value orientation of this group's writing?

Zhu Jing: The composition of the premise of writing is very complex, and there are various types of writers, and intellectual cultivation may be particularly important for certain types of writing, such as academic essays or scholarly prose. Knowledge alone may make one a scholar, not necessarily a writer. In fact, for writers, if some kind of knowledge is needed in writing, it can be learned and obtained in time. Many writers have fieldwork and historical searches in their writing practices. Moreover, the composition of writers in universities today is quite complex. Choosing to rely on knowledge or knowledge to write is only a possibility, for example, Wang Yao's "Folk Songs" by Wang Yao, a researcher of modern and contemporary Chinese literature, may rely on personal experience than his academic accomplishment, while Li Er's "Brother Ying Wu" requires considerable knowledge to prepare. Another example is Chi Zijian's "Pseudo-Manchukuo" and "White Snow Crow". Alai also did a full knowledge survey when he wrote the Zhan Pair. For example, Ge Liang once admitted in an interview that "Northern Iris", which spent seven years writing, initially wanted to write a non-fiction work, and spent three years doing data collation and desk work, almost a million words.

China Writers Network: Literary creation is more appealing to emotional images, while academic research and academic criticism are more appealing to reason, in your opinion, is this likely to become an internal conflict that academic writers have to face?

Zhu Jing: Many times, writers who write in college may have a switching device in their hearts, switching the corresponding channels when doing academic research and criticism, and writing on a different channel, personally, it may be that writing affects my teaching and research. The inner conflict may be at the moment of switching, and you need to find your own role.

Borges said: "I have experienced very little, but I know a lot. "In an age when reason and knowledge are exalted, it is difficult to go further down the path of literature by emotion alone. The rationality brought about by academic training has positive significance for literary creation, including the utility of the construction of a sense of logic on the layout of the novel, including the use of specific working methods such as fieldwork when occupying the material of the novel.

But at the same time, in the era of rational logic, perceptuality is indispensable in research or criticism, as Nanfan said, "Countless theoretical languages are covering the description and interpretation of the world, giving order, at this time, literature maintains a kind of perceptual freedom, and the vitality generated by this perceptual insight is the driving force behind the continuous self-subversion of literature." More importantly, this perceptual insight may remove some rational obscuration and liberate people's horizons. (The Empty Idea: A Pure Literary Debate)

China Writers Network: You mentioned earlier that writing affects teaching and research, can you elaborate on this?

Zhu Jing: I teach writing and literary criticism at university, and my creation makes my choice of research subjects more based on inner empathy and empathy, as well as understanding and empathy of aesthetic meaning. In the past few years, I have written comments such as Lin Wenyue and Zhang Yiwei. As for my doctoral dissertation, choosing to re-examine "Shanghai Modern", it may have something to do with my reading of Wang Anyi, who also teaches and writes at the university, and Wang Anyi's understanding of other writers has also inspired me. Naturally, I chose Wang Anyi as a sample of my observations of "Shanghai Modern". Not only that, but writing also influenced the texts and rhetoric of my academic research, not literary history papers in the strict sense, but literary criticism. Because literary criticism has made it possible for me to have free heart-to-heart conversations with my subjects.

China Writers Network: What do you think is the ideal writing? As an academic writer, what kind of nutrition do you think your writing can provide for your ideal writing?

Zhu Jing: Just like the independent character of the academy writers you have repeatedly affirmed. Why do academy writers gain relatively independent character? This is related to the position of the university in the overall social structure, and the university and university teachers are inherently endowed with the position and ability to observe and reflect on the times. This is closely related to the spiritual temperament of understanding "ideal writing". In a sense, the ideal writing should be the result of the writer's observation and reflection on their time.

China Writers Network: Do you think colleges and universities can produce writers, and how do your colleges do it?

Zhu Jing: This is a question that has been repeatedly discussed, in fact, we can comb through history to verify. Referring to data from a 2014 article in Southern Weekend, "The Change of Writer Cultivation Method from a Literature Workshop to an Online Writers' Workshop," in 1980, the China Writers Association restored the "Literature Workshop," and Wang Anyi, who was one of the first students, recalled: "The course is very good, basically a complete accelerated course of the Chinese Department. When I talked about "Dream of the Red Chamber", it was Professor Feng Qiyong and Professor Wu Zujian, who analyzed the text from the perspective of a writer, which benefited me a lot. "In 1984, the Institute of Literature was renamed Lu Xun College of Literature, and in 2008 I also had the honor to study in the lu academy's advanced study class. Since 1985, Wuhan University, Peking University, Northwest University, and Nanjing University have opened undergraduate classes for writers, and then Beijing Normal University and Lu Xun College of Literature have cooperated to upgrade and open graduate classes for writers, gradually promoting the scholarly transformation of writers.

From the perspective of foreign models, the University of Iowa in the United States opened a professional course in creative writing in the direction of literature in 1897, and in 1983, the International Writing Program of the University of Iowa presided over by Nie Hualing invited Writers such as Wu Zuguang and Ru Zhijuan to participate. So far, more than 350 universities in the United States have opened a Master of Arts (MFA) program in creative writing in literature, and many Nobel Laureates in Literature, such as Saul Bellow and Toni Morrison, have taught in MFA programs at different universities.

Critic Li Jingze believes: "Chinese writers have never lacked lofty ambitions and geniuses who think they are gifted, and what they lack is strict professional training. Some big writers are "even technically unqualified." In 2011, Shanghai University established the Research Center for Creative Writing in Chinese Literature. In 2012, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies established a bachelor's degree in creative writing. In 2013, Nanjing University founded the Creative Writing Department. In 2014, the Department of Chinese of Peking University enrolled a master's degree in creative writing. Fudan University's creative writing major has a history of more than ten years, and proposes to "cultivate a group of academic writers with broad vision, profound thinking, clear logic, rich academic and knowledge structure, imagination, and a certain disciplinary background." Not the kind of traditional writers who used to write on low-level travels or rich life experiences. Fu Yuehui, Zhang Yiwei, Wang Kanyu, Yu Jingru and other writers also came out of this.

In summary, it can be concluded that if the scale of training and teaching people to learn to write are considered, it should be of creative writing significance to cultivate writers in colleges and universities. Our school promotes the writing curriculum in the form of workshops, and the master's program related to creative writing is also based on this understanding.

China Writers Network: You became famous at a young age because of the works published in "Sprouts", and then faded out of people's vision for a period of time due to life changes such as work and family, at the end of 2019, the publication of the short story collection "For example" made you return to the reader's vision and also returned to the scene of writing. What was the difficulty of regaining writing after a ten-year hiatus, and what role did professional academic training play in the process?

Zhu Jing: A ten-year hiatus does not mean that it is completely detached from the literary scene. Because of the needs of writing teaching, I have always paid attention to what my friends and contemporaries who debuted together at that time have always paid attention to what they are writing, but ten years have passed, and the whole Chinese literature has changed a lot, and this change is a change in literary aesthetic taste and fashion, and it is also a change in the ecological pattern of literature, of course, including the continuous entry of younger writers, in the middle of which my daily life and mind, literary taste, etc. have also changed. To regain writing is to return to the changing literary scene with the change of the individual in the past ten years, and naturally meet the self-adjustment of personal writing, but I think that this adjustment is not completely unrelated to the past writing, it is the so-called "old me gives birth to the new me", which is an extension line of writing. As for professional academic training, especially in literary history, it has allowed me to examine my writing as an individual in the wider literary world and the larger literary population, and to realize the possibilities and limitations of a writer.

China Writers Network: In January 2020, you published the novel "Sir, Sir" in Flower City. You introduced the story around "people who read Chinese" for months, revised several times, and this situation seems to be "unprecedented in the past". Why was it difficult to write such a story at the time? You have revealed that your future writing plan will focus on two "sequences", one of which is the "college writing sequence" including the novel "Mr. Sir, Sir", can you talk about the reasons for using "college" as the object of writing?

Zhu Jing: When I wrote "Sir, Sir", I was in the ideal university of writing, and facing many ideal things that could not be said was the core of the writing difficulty. The language of praise and care is more difficult to express than the questions and inquiries later in Ophelia in the Water and Kasai.

Taking "college" as the object of writing is an observation and writing necessity in a field that is relatively familiar to oneself. However, the university is not an ivory tower and a utopia, in a sense, it is also common to all kinds of things in the outside world. Pay attention to this field, but also pay attention to the spiritual ecology of the group in this field. For example, Ge Fei's "Banner of Desire" is not only a ukiyo-e of the intellectual world, but also a spiritual picture of humanistic intellectuals at the end of the last century. Ge Fei also said: "In the past five years, the changes in Chinese society have been both subtle and drastic, and the so-called intellectual community is no longer what it used to be, and to think calmly about the essence of this change is almost like a generation apart, and I don't know what day it is today." "It points to issues that are still valuable today after the great discussion of the humanistic spirit in the 1990s."