The Conference on Eastern European Marxist Aesthetics on 7–10 November 2016 at Chengdu was sponsored by Professor Fu Qilin from Sichuan University in China, who is the Chief Expert of the China key project of philosophy and social science: ‘Bibliography and Research on Eastern European Marxist Aesthetics’. More than 30 scholars from the project team, including Professor Peter Beilharz and Dr. Sian Supski, representing Thesis Eleven, concentrated on topics of Eastern European Marxist aesthetics, such as philosophy of praxis, film aesthetics, music aesthetics, spatial aesthetics, semiotics, cultural theory and so on, from the perspectives of Soviet Union and Russian Marxism, Western Marxism and Chinese Marxism.
This was the first public collaboration between the Sichuan team and members of Thesis Eleven. It resulted in an agreement to collaborate further, not least given our shared interests in the work of critical theory and Heller, Markus and Bauman, and others, under this broad canopy. Fu Qilin, a world-leading scholar on the work of Heller, has been appointed an advisory editor of the journal, and his Centre is now affiliated with other participants in our global network. We publish the following abstracts as a window onto their work, as a gesture of publicity and goodwill opening this new phase of cooperation between our projects.
Budapest School: Travelling Theory?
Peter Beilharz
Curtin University
Abstract: This is an exploratory and investigative paper. It begins from a first question, ‘What is a school?’, and then examines the idea of the Budapest School, compared to the most prominent tradition on the horizon of critical theory: the Frankfurt School. It then pursues a second question, what happens to a school (or intellectual group of coworkers and companions or small collaborative network) when in motion or in global relocation, in this case to Australia. Finally, it addresses the question of cultural traffic and transmission. Is the (or a) final legacy of the Budapest School to be found, in fact, in the antipodes?
The Five Formations of Eastern European Marxist Aesthetics
Fu Qilin
Sichuan University
Abstract: Eastern European Marxist aesthetics stands out among worldwide Marxist aesthetics owing to more than ten thousand original writings containing innovative notions, categories and methods. However, its institutionalization, theoretical corruption and crisis of legitimation in the existing socialist societies are notorious, and received severe criticisms after 1989. Generally speaking, Eastern European Marxist aesthetics consists of five fundamental theoretical formations: philosophy of praxis, a theory of realism, aesthetic modernity, Marxist semiotics and a theory of genres. 1) Praxis is not only a reflection of the reality but also the nature of human being in the sense of the normative and descriptive dimensions, thus the aesthetic dimension is its constitutive element. 2) There are a variety of theories of realism, e.g. György Lukács’s construction of aesthetic reflection, Todor Pavlov’s theory of reflection, Erwin Pracht’s theory of Socialist Realism. 3) Aesthetics is a production of modernity, therefore its formation, development and crises aren’t separate from modernity and postmodernity, as the Budapest School, Zygmunt Bauman, Karel Kosík, Leszek Kolakowski maintain. 4) Semiotics, especially semantics – which has a long tradition in Eastern Europe – is integrated into Marxist theoretical systems, and includes the critique of the abstract theory of semiotics via Ferdinand de Saussure, and also the innovative construction of social semiotics or Praxiosemiotics (Prakseosemiotyka) of Adam Schaff, Stefan Morawski, Agnes Heller, György Markus, Jan Mukařovský, and Tadeusz Wòjcik. 5) Some important special genres such as the novel, drama-theatre, music, especially opera, film, and visual arts are explored critically, originally and constructively, and by so doing many classical artistic phenomena are analysed in detail according to the different norms-rules of genres. These formations of aesthetics are very complicated, that is to say, insightful and penetrating but problematical and intellectually onerous. Eastern European Marxist aesthetics has a complicated relation to Western Marxist, Soviet and Russian Marxist, and Chinese Marxist aesthetics. Only by means of reflection on its achievements and lessons based on the five formations can we find a relevant key to develop contemporary Marxist aesthetics.
On Šimunek’s Marxist Musical Aesthetic Thoughts
Guo Fangli
Yangtze Normal University
Abstract: Eugen Šimunek, a Marxist theorist in former Czechoslovakia, focused on the study of aesthetics, especially music. Aesthetics and General Art Theory was one of his aesthetics works, and included his general thoughts on aesthetics. The book was published by Obzor in 1976 in Bratislava, and the Russian edition was published by Progress Publishers in 1980, and was translated into Chinese by a Chinese Marxist scholar, Dong Xuewen, in 1988. This paper focuses on this work and analyses Šimunek’s Marxist theory of music. The methodological principle of Aesthetics and General Art Theory was Lenin’s ‘theory of reflection’. Šimunek studied art from the relationships between art, reality, and the artist’s aesthetic intention. Generally speaking, Šimunek’s Marxist musical theory can be summarized in the following three key points: first of all, Šimunek thought music was a kind of stylized imitation and a unification of the objective and the subjective; then, he analysed the structure of subject matter using tonality, and argued music was a typical description of man and his reality by special tones; finally, he thought musical activity was a process of semantization, including the production of meaning and the development of man, which pointed to transforming social being. Šimunek emphasized his basic theoretical stance of intervention. Although the ‘artist’s aesthetic intention’ was the key category of Šimunek’s musical aesthetics and it implied his limited breakthrough of Lenin’s ‘theory of reflection’, Šimunek’s aesthetics still was a reflection-aesthetics, and there were the internal problems of reflection-aesthetics in his theory, neglecting the creativity of the individual and the subjectivity of consciousness.
Karel Kosík’s ‘On Laughter’ and Its Chinese Translation: A Review
Jiang Jiuwen
Southwest Jiaotong University
Abstract: Karel Kosík elaborates his attitudes on laughter in his essay ‘On Laughter’: on the whole, he celebrates laughter, but he maintains that laughter in some forms is offensive. Kosík celebrates laughter mainly because it liberates people in the form of collective revelry and, therefore, manifests their humanity. Laughter can be offensive because on some occasions it distorts values and traditions, such as the aggression of ‘anti-laughter’ and the inauthenticity of the ‘keep smiling’ form, in Kosík’s words. However, laughter of these kinds is forced or born of malice. Based on Kosik’s elaboration of laughter, this paper explores, by taking the context of the Prague Spring into consideration, his reality orientation. ‘On Laughter’ is confident and optimistic, but also self-comforting and even helpless. The Chinese translation and publishing of The Crisis of Modernity: Essays and Observations from the 1968 Era (‘On Laughter’ is Chapter 19) proved to be a major event for Chinese scholars, for most Chinese scholars prefer to read his Chinese translated essays rather than in English, let alone in Czech. However, the 2014 version published by Heilongjiang University Press, and thus far the only Chinese translation, is far from satisfactory. With typical examples, this paper concludes with some translation failures falling into at least two categories. The first is failure of fluency. Some of the translation is not fluent enough, and full of long run-on sentences or phrases. The second is misinterpretation. Some of the translation misunderstands the source and, as a result, would likely bewilder and even misguide readers. The paper offers corresponding translations of the mentioned examples.
Two Transitions of Czechoslovakian Marxist Semiotics in the 20th Century
Kuang Cunjiu
Sichuan Agricultural University
Abstract: Czechoslovakia is one of the earliest places that opened the road to the study of Marxist semiotics, and presents two different dimensions: from Structuralism to Marxism and from Marxism to Structuralism. In the mid-1930s, the Czech Prague School, represented by Jan Mukařovský (1891–1975), reconstructed Formalism and Structuralism with Marxist methodology in a dialectical and historical way. During this period, Konrad K. (1908–1941), one of the Czechoslovakian founders of Marxist historiography and the earliest socialistic-realistic theoretician, and Záviš Kalandra (1902–1950), another important Marxist literary theorist from Czechoslovakia, had many well-known debates with Mukařovský which, as a result, encouraged him to make a research transition into Marxist semiotics with later Czechoslovakia structuralist scholars. It can be said that the establishment of Marxist semiotics in Czechoslovakia was closely related to Mukařovský’s creative study of Marxism, linguistics and semiotic theories. In the 1960s and ’70s, a group of Czechoslovakian Marxist scholars proposed a series of original ideas of Marxist semiotics based on Marxist humanism, such as the ‘humanized’ Marxist symbolic aesthetic theory proposed by Ladislav Štoll (1902–1981), Karel Kosik’s (1926–2003) in-depth study of the structure of reality, concrete totality and philosophical art, Ivan Sviták’s (1925–1994) symbolic mode of human existence, Eugen Šimunek’s (1924–) artistic semiotic aesthetics, which re-opened a new transition of Marxist semiotics and can be considered as Marxist-Structural research. It can be said that this transition of Czechoslovakia Marxist semiotics is consistent with the background of the overall turn of the Marxist semiotics studies in the world, as well as the positive response of Czechoslovakian Marxists to semiotic study. Their studies in this period exhibit a large number of critical elements of Marxist humanism.
On Capitalism as Religion by Walter Benjamin
Kuang Yu
Sichuan University
Abstract: Capitalism as Religion is the most percipient short writing by Benjamin, published after his death. It reflects his judgment of the organicity of society and religion, or that the main traits of capitalist religion are made up of three aspects: firstly, capitalist religion is a purely idolatrous cult; secondly, capitalist religion is its uninterrupted perpetuity; thirdly, capitalism as religion has as a characteristic the creation of feelings of guilt (Schuld). This article, on the one hand, reads Capitalism as Religion from the development of Benjamin’s own thought, as the consequence of the development of his methodology, stereotype and the impulse of theology. On the other, it interprets Benjamin from the perspective of western Marxism and its history of the criticism of fetishism, considering the meaning of which provides the testimony of unmasking the homoousia of modern capitalist society.
Bloch’s Liberation Theology: From ‘The Spirit of Utopia’ to ‘The Principle of Hope’
Liao Heng and Deng Jianhua
Southwest Jiaotong University
Abstract: As a representative of German expressionism, young Ernst Bloch explored in Sturm und Drang a new and liberated human nature, which is fully embodied in his The Spirit of Utopia, which together with Thomas Müntzer: Theologian of Revolution, offered a new interpretation of the history of Christianity. In his later work, The Principle of Hope, Bloch articulated creatively the dialectical relationship between Marxism and liberation theology. He placed the two different theories under the same relation to human nature and human destiny in order to restore Christianity as the original consciousness of the poor’s religion, so that the latter could form a common goal with the social liberation movement of Marxism. Bloch’s ‘philosophy of hope’ became the hub of his interpretation of liberation theology and Marxism.
Zofia Lissa and Her Marxist Musical Semiotics
Lu Zhenglan
Sichuan University
Abstract: Zofia Lissa is an important member of the Eastern European School of Marxism. A distinguished musical theoretician, her thoughts on music have been greatly influential in the development of Chinese musicology. The present paper summarizes and carefully analyses Zofis Lissa’s integration of Marxism and semiotics, starting from the most essential theoretical contributions – the multiplicity of musical meaning, the class nature and national character of music – and her paper ‘The Aesthetic Functions of Silence and Rest’, in order to broaden the sphere of musicology, and shed light on the art scholarship of today.
The Paradox between Legitimacy and Contradiction: A Study of Agnes Heller’s Theory of Modern Aesthetics
Peng Chengguang
Southwest University for Nationalities
Abstract: Agnes Heller argues that, as an independent philosophical discipline, modern aesthetics must contain at least four legitimate elements: the emergence of aesthetic autonomy, the lack of common taste of the bourgeoisie, the escape from everyday life through art, and the commercialization of art. The discourses of modern aesthetics, philosophy of history and art criticism contradict each other. Modern aesthetics has fallen into and survived this paradox, which constitutes the paradox of the modern aesthetic. In order to better interpret modern artworks, Heller claims that the dignity of the artwork can be used to replace the concept of the autonomy of art. She also argues that the value of an artwork is in its embodiment of significance in our lives, which demonstrates the humanism in Heller’s aesthetics.
György Lukács and Aesthetics of Praxis as Being
Qin Jiayang
Sichuan University
Abstract: The notion of an aesthetics of praxis as being was put forward by Chinese scholar Zhu Liyuan, who sought to place the development of Chinese aesthetics on a new path. He broke the subject-object dichotomy, arguing that beauty was not something already existing but instead something generative. The concentration of people on beauty in this way can go back to real daily life and beauty itself. Aesthetics of praxis as being of Eastern European neo-Marxism forms the basis of the development of Chinese aesthetics, together with aesthetics of praxis, aesthetics of being, Husserl’s phenomenology and Heidegger’s existentialism, Yugoslav praxis of aesthetics, and the Hungarian reconstructing aesthetics of the Budapest School as well. Yet, most scholars haven’t reached a consensus about the legitimacy and completeness of the aesthetics of praxis as being. There even exists a debate about the value and meaning of this new system. This paper is based on the Hungarian neo-Marxist philosopher, aesthetician, literary historian, and critic György Lukács’ writings and theories. In particular, his theory of being that appears in History and Class Consciousness and Ontology of Social Being, and the Marxist dialectical materialism of his later writing, Die Eigenart des Ästhetischen. The paper aims at explaining the normative formation and the logical structure of the aesthetics of praxis as being from the perspective of daily life, fetishism, praxis and art to show that it is a reasonable and viable path for Chinese aesthetics.
A ‘New Scientific Planning’: Why and How?: A Reflection on a ‘Controversy’ between Habermas and Marcuse
Qiu Xiaolin
Sichuan University
Abstract: Marcuse attributed the social phenomenon of the so-called ‘one dimensional man’ to the result of political manipulation of technology, and hence called for a new scientific plan. Habermas disapproved of both Marcuse’s diagnosis of the era and the scientific plan based on it, and reinterpreted Marcuse’s question as the framework of labouring and mutual reaction. His coping strategy, which only calls for demonstration by college and high school students, is disappointing. Through reexamining the controversy between Marcuse and Habermas, we see that, on the one hand, the point of view of Habermas regarding Marcuse’s treatment of technology and science as ideology is questionable, while on the other hand, the scientific plan based on the prospective of the theory of value of subjectivity philosophy is not helpful. American scholar Andrew Feenberg takes the side of Marcuse, criticizing Habermas’ theory of value neutrality, clarifying the necessity of Marcuse’s critique of rationality of technology, and indicating the possibility of bringing ‘norm’ into the design of technology under the project of the theory of communicative action. But this outcome is also unsatisfactory in that it has no practical indication of the operability of this ‘norm’. Chinese scholar Wu Xinming’s arguments about three normative dimensions of design can be employed as a supplement even as the most focused response to Marcuse’s question.
Janina Bauman: ‘Pockets of Belonging’
Sian Supski
Monash University
Abstract: Janina Bauman wrote two books in English, or three. The first, and most celebrated, was her 1986 memoir of childhood in the Warsaw ghetto, Winter in the Morning. The second, published in 1988, was entitled A Dream of Belonging: My Years in Postwar Poland. A third book, Beyond These Walls: Escaping the Warsaw Ghetto – A Young Girl’s Story, appeared in 2006. It combined the text of the first book with some passages from the second. Janina Bauman achieves a great deal, as a writer; but she is also a phenomenologist of everyday life. There is dignity in these memoirs. They are the story of an ordinary life, even if one lived in extraordinary circumstances. Bauman’s purpose behind her writing shows that although she experienced and lived through two of the most important moments in 20th-century history, the Holocaust and communism, she still believed that her life was ordinary. Many women believe their lives are ordinary, their achievements not worthy. Bauman’s story is extraordinary because she survived, but it is also ordinary because it shows through the recounting of everyday experiences the extremes of human behaviour, incomprehensible cruelty but also deep compassion, and an understanding of what it means to be human in all its profound dignity and frailty.
Kosík’s Concept of Event and its Aesthetic Presentation
Tan Cheng
Chongqing Academy of Social Sciences
Abstract: Karel Kosík proposed ‘humanist socialism’ as a solution to the ‘Czech Question’ and even for the crisis of socialism. Kosík’s humanism is based on notions of ‘crisis’ or ‘accident’, which is quite different from other Eastern European neo-Marxist theorists. By analysing the category of ‘event’, Kosík not only responded to Althusser’s questioning on the compatibility of Marxism and humanism, but also developed the latter’s idea of ‘real humanism’ in ‘For Marx’. For Kosík, humanism is not simply a political goal but also a starting point of the practice of the subject. This also means that the actor encounters truth through event and becomes the subject of truth, who can resist systemic rules and evade manipulation, thus becoming the reformer and the creator of social reality. In his discussion of art, we can find detailed descriptions of the function of event. There are three dimensions: first, ‘the irony of events’ reveals that event could break out of systems and create possibilities for the emergence of ‘truth’ hidden in systems. Second, the proposition of ‘the dualism of artistic work’ suggests that the production of truth requires the participation of event. Third, the drama principle existing in the relationship between individuals and history shows that event promotes the ‘subjectivation’ of individuals, and makes them the subject of practice. These are the unique expressions of Kosík’s thought on event in aesthetics.
The Cinematic Aesthetics of the Soviet Montage School
Wang Bin
Sichuan University
Abstract: The Soviet Montage School, as the most important film aesthetics school in world film history, has made very excellent achievements in film theory and in film-making practice. For a long time, the school has been widely and profoundly influential on the state of world film. In the new technology and its social context, a key question of contemporary film aesthetics is how we should inherit the aesthetic heritages of the school, to develop and enrich its aesthetic tradition, and to carry forward its cultural spirit. This paper mainly aims to explore the emergence and development of the school, to probe the aesthetic theory of its main characters, such as Djiza Vertov, V Kuleshov, V Pudovkin and Sergei Eisenstein. In their opinion, montage is not only an audio-visual technique and cinematic pattern, but also a basic way of thinking for all art categories. In a sense, montage is a basic principle of human thinking. The course of montage from a simple cinematic skill to a way of thinking demonstrates how the school, through a single skill, revealed the nature of cinematic art and explored cinematic philosophy. Even though V Pudovkin and Sergei Eisenstein were aware of the cultural potential of cinematic art through montage, contemporary film is still at a loss to realize this potential.
Agnes Heller’s Questioning and Transcendence of the Aesthetic Utopia of the Frankfurt School
Wang Jing
Jinan University
Abstract: The critical theory and aesthetic utopian thoughts of the Frankfurt School have had a great influence on Western society. As a student of Lukacs, Heller’s ideas inevitably have a profound theoretical parallel in the Frankfurt School. They inherited the tradition of Lukacs’ ideas, criticizing modern society from the aesthetic dimension, and combined aesthetic theory with social and political theory. In their works, aesthetic and art have never been a pure artistic phenomenon but a social phenomenon, closely related to social existence and social consciousness. Aesthetics and art show the social foundation and cultural composition of human existence. The Frankfurt School attempted to establish a complete aesthetic utopian theory, to find a way to save and reconstruct alienated reason, to restore human integrity, and to achieve human liberation. But through her different life experiences and philosophical positions, Heller questioned the Frankfurt School’s aesthetic utopia, and showed the limitations and disadvantages of its aesthetic and emotional solutions to modern problems. Heller put forward a variety of ways of liberation, such as returning to the living world, establishing a communicative aesthetic, an ethical aesthetic and so on, to transcend the Frankfurt School’s aesthetic utopia. Whether the Frankfurt School’s utopian aesthetic salvation, or Heller’s micro-revolution in various fields, they hold in common a critical spirit in the analysis of modern civilization.
The Veiled Characteristic of the Avant-Garde: On the Aspect of ‘Noise’ in Popular Music
Wang Yiqun
Sichuan University
Abstract: As a product of mass culture, popular music – usually viewed as the enemy of art and the accomplice of alienation – has always been criticized for its influence in constructing identity and its general superficiality. This paper holds that popular music’s ‘noise’ embodies the features of ‘seriousness’ and the avant-garde, and thus should not be homogenized. The ‘noise’ is meant to eliminate the features of anti-literature and anti-humanity in music, and allow music to return to its own vehicle, namely, sounds. The ‘noise’ of popular music interrupts man’s consciousness and reconstructs his feelings. This kind of music becomes a tool against alienation as it increasingly emerges in society. The main contribution of the avant-garde in popular music to mass culture concerns people’s sense of time in the modern world. We are residing in a consumer-driven society and so mass culture is here to stay. Thus, we must interpret and explore popular music’s positive aspects with a positive and constructive attitude instead of simply criticizing it.
Modernity and Its Antinomies of Culture: On György Márkus’s Theory of Cultural Modernity
Yan Yan
Zhongnan University of Economics and Law
Abstract: György Márkus tries to provide a new possibility for modernity to leave cultural crisis behind. He argues that there are two types of culture: the anthropological notion of culture and the notion of high culture. The former means some pervasive aspect of all non-biologically fixed human behaviour; that is, the meaning-bearing and meaning-transmitting aspect of human practices and their results. The latter means a value-marked meaning; it designates a set of specific human practices – first of all the arts and the sciences – which, under the conditions of Western modernity, are regarded as autonomous, that is, as having a value in themselves. However, with the intertwining of Enlightenment and Romanticism, the two notions of culture appear as antinomies. The anthropological notion of culture contains paradoxes of cultural universals and cultural particularities – i.e. evolutionism stands opposed to cultural relativism, cosmopolitanism stands opposed to cultural nationalism and the levelling ideas of universalism stand opposed to socio-cultural separatism. On the other hand, high culture has four characteristics: objectivation, innovativeness, dematerialization, and autonomy. The antinomy of high culture means its autonomy cannot be achieved completely because commodification directly confers an instrumental functionality to works of high culture. Márkus also discusses the relationship between communication, science and democracy. He argues that if we have beliefs and our critical-oppositional intellectuals can discuss issues in public domains, maybe we can survive in cultural modernity. As György Márkus’ thoughts on modernity as culture offer many avenues for further contributions to cultural theory, it will surely advance the theory of cultural modernity in China.
Epistemology, Modernity and History: Rereading Brecht’s Alienation Theory from the Dimension of Effect
Yang Xiangrong
Zhejiang University of Media and Communications
Abstract: In the context of Brecht, alienation is both a method and a principle of dramatic performance, and also an aesthetic artistic effect of drama. In Brecht’s view, alienation theory is a breakthrough and revolt against traditional realistic drama theory. The connotation of alienation theory is embodied in two aspects: the method of alienation and its effect, but the effect of alienation is often ignored by academic interpreters. In Brecht’s theory, the effect of alienation is embodied in the following three aspects: first, alienation means the perfection of the subject’s epistemology. Alienation changes the way we look at the world, which makes the familiar in daily life become special and unexpected. Second, alienation is the modern strategy with which Brecht realizes its social criticism. It focuses on the expose and criticism of the reality of capitalist society. Finally, alienation is a historical presentation which presents incidents as history.
Galvano della Volpe and the Aesthetics of Eastern Europe
Zhang Bi
Northwest University
Abstract: As a representative of Marxist positivism, Galvano della Volpe proposed that Marxist aesthetic theory should carry out the engagement with various semiotics, especially the school of structuralism semiotics, and applied the semiotic approach of Ferdinand de Saussure, Roland Barthes, and Louis Hjelmslev to the criticism of art. At the basis of this methodology, della Volpe advocated the inquiry into social ideology in different kinds of art forms, and tried to differentiate their aesthetic features by means of semiotics. Meanwhile, the aesthetics of Eastern Europe were influenced by the aesthetics of the Soviet Union, which insisted that the analysis of all different kinds of art forms should be simply carried out from the perspective of superstructure without analysing their respective aesthetic features, thereby neglecting the respective aesthetic value of different art forms and leading to the result of mechanical materialism. In view of this fact, della Volpe hoped to improve the aesthetics approach of Eastern Europe and eliminate the influences of mechanical materialism on it. Though he insisted in principle on using the semiotics of Saussure, Barthes and Hjelmslev, della Volpe in fact applied Claude Levi-Strauss’ conception of bricolage in his structural anthropology. To della Volpe, every form of artwork had to be expressed via a kind of particular vehicle, and the artwork consisted of several units of the vehicle. All these units jointly constructed the wholeness of the significance of the artwork, and every unit’s significance could be judged at the basis of the artwork’s wholeness of the significance. Thus, the aesthetic value of different kinds of art forms could be interpreted afresh and the aesthetics of Eastern Europe would be further developed.
On Yugoslav Socialist Modernism under the Domination of the Progressive Myth
Zhang Chenghua
South China Normal University
Abstract: Literary and artistic modernization and westernization played an important role in creating a Yugoslav identity in the early developmental phase of the socialist republic. Socialist modernism became the dominant style after a short period of socialist realism. Socialist modernism typically involved abstract art informed by the progressive orientation of the Communist Party as well as literary and artistic critics. The embrace of abstract art in this period was symbolically interpreted as the pursuit of progress that demonstrated the success of the socialist development of Yugoslavia. Abstract art’s creative skills were also used for the construction of progressive national myths which helped to shape the ideology of Yugoslavia’s national identity. Socialist modernism tended to concentrate on the exploration of poetic visual effects, geometric abstract arts, application of new technologies and multi-media integration. Because of this it was criticized for catering to the taste of the red bourgeoisie and ignoring the broader social reality. In the late 1960s, socialist modernism began to decline.
The Landscape and the Capital: Study on Rising of the English ‘Picturesque’ from the View of Cultural Geography
Zhang Yi
Sichuan University
Abstract: This article analyses the historical formation and development of the ‘picturesque’ aesthetic ideal in 18th to 19th century England. I discuss the relationship between capital and landscape in terms of a system of spatial encoding and production. First, the article addresses discussions about ‘spatial perception’ to indicate the relationship between Harvey’s theory and those of Foucault, Lefebvre, Bourdieu and Gaston Bachelard. Second, I turn to a case study which focuses on the rise of the ‘picturesque’ aesthetic ideal and new forms of spatial perception. The historical development of the ideal began with English painters who produced modern landscape pictures by imitating those Italian canons. This was followed by romantic poets who were inspired by the beauty of their local landscape. These developments were in turn interpreted by commentators such as Shaftesbury, who tried to articulate aesthetic categories on the basis of these works. The picturesque aesthetic ideals spread slowly out from the artistic elite into the everyday lives of common people. Here examples could be detected in painting, art museums, art colleges, newspapers, travel agencies, publishing houses, etc. Finally, I explore how the economic, cultural and symbolic capital constructs new ‘picturesque’ time-spatial perceptions. In this respect, cultural geography helps to demonstrate that social relations inform the content and meaning of all individual time-spatial orientations.
Ideology: The Metalanguage of Culture
Henry Zhao
Sichuan University
Abstract: Ideology is a complicated concept in social sciences and humanities. Interpretations of ideology over the past two centuries have employed key concepts as culture, signs, and metalanguage. This paper synthesizes these concepts into a logical and succinct definition: ideology is the metalanguage of culture. With this definition, the paper attempts to resolve difficult problems that have challenged the scholarship on ideology. These include the question of ideology being integrated or fragmented and authenticity or falsity of ideology. Finally, I suggest that a semiotic analysis could provide new understanding to these questions.
The Exploitation of the Heritage of Mikhail Aleksandrovich Lifshitz in Contemporary Russian Academic Circles
Zhou Qichao
Chinese Academy of Social Science
Abstract: Mikhail Aleksandrovich Lifshitz (Лифшиц, Михаил Александрович, 1905–1983) was a famous researcher and editor of the fundamental bibliography of Soviet Marxism literary theory. The remarkable books of selections on Marxism literary theory are all based on selections of Lifshitz’s work. As a pioneer for ‘the third path’ of ‘anti-philistine’ sociology and ‘illiberalism’, Lifshitz remains a peripheral figure in contemporary Russian circles but is considered to be ‘the last Marxist in the Soviet period’ who is a ‘contemporary classic’, together with Bakhtin and Lotman. In the last decade, there has been a recovery of his oeuvre and several of his writings have been published including: The Correspondence between Mikhail Aleksandrovich Lifshitz and George Lukacs (1931–1970), Outline of Russian Culture, and The Lecture of the Theory of Art. This is a welcome development as it reveals afresh his unique standpoint and creative method in Marxism literary theory.
The Pursuit of Totality in Lukacs’ The Theory of the Novel
Zhu Yazheng
Sichuan University
Abstract: Starting with the study of the early work of Lukacs, The Theory of the Novel, this paper outlines the early shape of his key concept of ‘totality’ in Lukacs’ ideology, and explores its origin in Lukacs’ Hegelian philosophical framework and his move to a Marxist perspective. On the basis of an analysis of his delineation of three typical literary forms – epic, tragedy, novel – this paper also concludes with his three levels of totality – all-inclusive totality, internal totality and false totality – in order to reveal Lukacs’ stand on ‘critical realism’. A key purpose of this exposition of Lukacs’ concept of totality in his literary theory is to rectify what I perceive to be common misreadings in contemporary Chinese literary circles.
