Abstract: Contemporary Chinese literature and art theory started from the reflection on the issue of
“human studies”. During this process, concepts of“human nature” and“new enlightenment” gained
momentum, which marked the formation of humanistic theoretical trend. However, in the middle and late 1990s,
with the translation and introduction of some new concepts from the West, such as theory of the body, theory of
events, speculative realism and thingness, humanism in contemporary Chinese literary and artistic thought was
gradually replaced by post-humanism. From the perspective of the internal logic of literary theory deduction,
the shift from humanism to post-humanism can also be seen as the shift from the constructivism of subject and
object dualism between humanity and object (linguistic theory) to the materiality theory of human and object
integration and intercommunication (anti-linguistic theory), which provides opportunities and possibilities for a
new round of transformation of contemporary Chinese literature and art theory.

Key words: humanism, the turn of the body, thingness, post-humanism