Table of Content

15 January 2014, Volume 31 Issue 1

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Articles

A Node or an Interface: Crosscultural Misreading
 in Zhang Yimo's Remake of Blood SimpleLaurence Simons

XI Meng-.Lao-Lun-Shi

2014, 31(1):  1-11. 

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 “Creative misreading” occurs when one culture misunderstands and misuses elements of a different culture when it tries to understand and assimilate something of the source culture. The receiving culture may acquire something new in the process, which is different from or even directly opposite in meaning to that of the original culture. This kind of interaction, from the perspective of cultural exchange and growth, is quite common and of great importance. Creative crosscultural misreading is actually a hallmark of the crosscultural remake of movies, for the interpretation of the “otherness” thus involved is never simply a matter of “translation”. In 2009, Zhang Yimou’s A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Sho, which is a remake of Blood Simple, a film produced in 1984 by Joel and Ethan Coen, typically reveals the full richness and complexity of crosscultural misreading.
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A Comparative Study of Early Films in China and South Korea:
 Imagining East Asia in the 1930s on the Silver Screen

NIE Wei, SHU Jing

2014, 31(1):  12-20. 

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A number of South Korean films produced in the 1930s were rediscovered since the beginning of the 21st century. These earlier productions are similar to China’s movies of the same period in terms of subject matter, theme and style. They both use this modern artistic medium to explore “antimodernity” themes. By comparing the three representative early Korean movies “Sweet Dream”, “Fisherman’s Fire” and “Military Train”, with China’s early productions, this article explores how East Asia is imagined in the early films from a dual perspective.
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The Transcendence and Return of Aesthetics

GAO Jian-Beng

2014, 31(1):  21-29. 

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 The transcendence of aesthetics does not seek transcendence beyond this world; instead, it strives to move beyond the limits of traditional aesthetics and to engage real life experiences and larger issues concerning natural environment, ecology, culture and society. It is not to “purify,” but to “mix”. The transcendence of aesthetics is to develop a “mixed aesthetics” instead of dissolving it, though there exist a popular misunderstanding that aesthetics is outdated and should be abandoned. “Mixed aesthetics” represents a transitional stage of aesthetics. In a world that is dominated by consumer culture and flooded with images, both arts and aesthetic tastes are undergoing profound changes. The changing world calls for the return of aesthetics, but this would not be a simple reversion to the old tradition, but rather the creation of a new aesthetics. This new aesthetics is to reinterpret the function of arts, redefine the meaning of aesthetics in life, and to reconstruct aesthetic theories applicable to the natural environment, human society and culture. This paper not only calls for the revival of aesthetics but also tries to describe the current situation and developing trends in this field of study.
 

Cosmopolitan Body: Reflections on the Subject of Embodied Cosmopolitanism

ZHOU Li-Yun

2014, 31(1):  30-38. 

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In a highly mobile and globalized world, it is significant to rethink cosmopolitanism by first looking into the issue of subjectivity. There exist three versions of cosmopolitanism: the universal cosmopolitanism, the particularized cosmopolitanism, and the critical/reflective cosmopolitanism. They differ mainly in how to treat the other or otherness. Critical/reflective cosmopolitanism is cosmopolitanism in its true sense, and the embodied cosmopolitanism is a new form of it. Embodied cosmopolitanism reflects the unity of globalization and localization. While it acknowledges otherness, it never adopts an absolute stance. The subject of embodied cosmopolitanism is the world citizen whose cosmopolitanism or globalness is achieved through an aesthetic appreciation of difference. Embodied cosmopolitanism means tolerance for otherness and suggests openmindedness, flexibility and adaptability of the embodied subject in a multicultural environment. It also reflects a new ethics, namely, the ethics of embodiment, in a world that is interconnected and mutually dependent.
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The Function and Structure of the Casefiling Procedure of Civil Proceedings: a Reconsideration

FU Yu-Lin

2014, 31(1):  39-53. 

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 The casefiling procedure is probably the most disorganized part of China' civil proceeding system. Since the 2012 “Amendments to Civil Procedure Law” was formulated within the old framework, it fails to balance the call for political harmony, the need to ensure the right to appeal, and the demand for greater legal efficiency. The disorganized nature has caused many practical problems and theoretical dilemmas, affecting both the structure and function of the procedure. For example, the mixed review system makes it difficult to determine the starting point of effectiveness of a prosecution; the court prosecution review system often interrupts the pleading and defense process between the prosecutor and the defendant, thus damaging both the right to appeal and the procedure's efficiency; the absence of legal restraints during the period when one has the right or the obligation to defend not only affects the justice of the procedure but also reduces its efficiency; and the difficulties in pretrial mediation works against its overall purpose. Based on the principles and objectives of the new law, through legal interpretation and judiciary reform, efforts could be made to clearly define the lawfiling, pretrial and even prelitigation procedures and then properly connect these stages, so as to ensure the fulfillment of the fundamental objectives.
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Rectification and Redress: An Inquiry into the Criminal Retrial System

CHU Dian-Qing

2014, 31(1):  54-66. 

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(Law School, Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Beijing 100191, China)Abstract： The criminal retrial system, whose logical premise is a final decision, becomes legitimized when certain serious defects occur in the original procedure, or when its expected functions fail somehow and meanwhile infringe on other significant values, even though the original procedure develops and is completed in accordance with rules. Therefore, from the perspective of the formal rational theory and the rules of procedure, the functions of criminal retrial system can be categorized into two groups: rectification as to fix the defects in the original procedure, and redress as to help restore the balance of values. Reexamining criminal retrial function orientation in terms of rectification and redress, we might better design and implement the specific institutions of criminal retrial, especially the reopening institution. To resolve the problems in the criminal retrial practice, it is necessary to classify and sort out the reopening reasons and to improve the original procedure, which serves as the premise of retrial.
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Western Postmodernist Literary Theories and Their Positive Impact in China

SHU Li-Yuan

2014, 31(1):  67-90. 

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 The western postmodernist literary theories have exerted an inestimable impact on contemporary Chinese literary theories since they were first introduced to China over two decades ago. This impact has both positive and negative sides. While some scholars tend to devalue or simply negate the importance of postmodernist theories, this article aims to focus on their positive impact in China and seeks to demonstrate that these theories have actively contributed to the innovative construction of contemporary Chinese literary theories in the whole course of their critical reception in China. This positive influence is to be demonstrated from five aspects, supported by abundant of empirical materials. Firstly, they have introduced a critical and reflective perspective. Secondly, they have helped to diversify contemporary Chinese literary theories. Thirdly, they have powerfully challenged the metaphysical way of thinking. Fourthly, they have generated a sense of crisis of literature in the postmodern world and triggered the debate on “the end of literature”. Fifthly, the postmodernist ecological criticism has positively contributed to Chinese literary theories. Doubtless, western postmodernist literary theories have something that we can borrow and use for our own purpose, but more importantly this positive impact is due to the fact that Chinese scholars of literary and art theories, with their keen insight and openmindedness, have critically reviewed, assimilated and creatively reworked these theories to make them more relevant to the Chinese context and our own problems and more flexibly adaptable for their own creative construction of Chinese literary and art theories.

Wang Yinglin’s Poetics: Textual Features and its Significance in the History of Poetics

JIANG Yin

2014, 31(1):  91-98. 

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 While generally recognized as a preeminent philologist, Wang Yinglin also distinguished himself in literary studies and is particularly known for his philologyinformed approaches in the study of literary works. Though poetics is not his specialty, his critical practice demonstrates the prevailing trend of poetry criticism of Southern Song Dynasty, which, with its emphasis on the source study of words and allusions, is of the category of broad intertextual inquiry. Wang’s unique contribution to poetics lies in the fact that he has not only provided correct texts and proper interpretation of figures of speech but also offered new understanding of some issues in literary history since as a man of great erudition, he is quick to discern similarities in ancient and contemporary poetic creations. His poetics is elucidated in his book Kunxue Jiwen and has exerted a profound influence on poetry criticism of later generations and particularly inspired the poetics of Qing Dynasty.

Criticism of the Hegemony of Instrumental Reason in Surfacing——An Analysis from the Perspective of Space Theory

WANG Ying-Jun

2014, 31(1):  99-108. 

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 The hegemony of instrumental reason has roots in modern man's excessive worship of knowledge and technical products, and is embodied in the pursuit of absolute technological rationality, which has resulted in the devaluation of human emotion and the alienation of man. From the perspective of postmodern space theory, with the influx of capital, such alienation expands from cities to the countryside and from developed regions to the developing ones, and is manifest in the invasion of the rural space by mechanical civilization. This makes human redemption an important concern of modern age. In her novel Surfacing, Margaret Atwood vividly depicts the expansion of alienation due to the hegemony of instrumental reason and while offering a powerful critique of the hegemony, she also suggests possibilities for human redemption through a return to nature. Hence, Surfacing is to be read not just a work of ecofeminism but as one that has greater relevance to us in a world of globalization.
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On the Development Model of Trinetworks Integration——A Case Study of Shanghai Based on ActorNetwork Theory

YUE Yu-Jun

2014, 31(1):  109-123. 

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2010 witnessed significant development of China’s trinetworks integration. Since then, related technical issues, interests and regulations have drawn much attention from the public and the development mode of trinetworks integration has also become a central issue for discussion and debate among many circles. Based on actornetwork theory, this study of trinetworks integration in Shanghai shows that the city has created a model that combines exogenous and endogenous development, that is, “process controlled by the industrial sector, decision making led by government and selected by industry sectors”. As is demonstrated in the network configuration, the “pseudo replacement” that occurs in Shanghai’s trinetworks integration helps to create well balanced resources pools which foster the development of trinetworks integration. The case study also suggests that it's urgent to develop “toplevel” designing in system and institutions. Besides, the actornetwork theory, if it is to serve as a research paradigm for trinetworks integration, needs to be further developed and refined in order to better address such issues as the segmentation of the internal and external space, the discrimination of endogenous and exogenous factors and the assessment of the size and number of networks as well as the power of the government etc.
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A Conceptual Analysis of Collaborative Governance

TIAN Pei-Jie

2014, 31(1):  124-140. 

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In the past thirty years, multisector collaboration among governments, enterprises, nongovernmental organizations and citizens has been more commonly practiced over the world in order to meet the challenges presented by increasingly complicated social problems and the shortage of government funds. Collaborative governance, as a new field of inquiry, has attracted much attention from western scholars. Recently, as China is trying to reform its social management system, domestic scholars have also started research in this developing trend, often by analyzing western literature related to this phenomenon. However, these scholars seldom refer to the papers on collaborative governance as they are not yet thoroughly familiar with the concept. To make better use of the research results by the western scholars and to pave the way for further study in this area, the author traces the origin and evolution of the concept of collaborative governance in western literature, discusses different definitions by western scholars, compares collaboration governance with some related concepts and then defines collaborative governance in his own way.