The questions of subjectivity and the literary style of realism, as manifested in Hu Feng's theoretical writings and Lu Ling's fictional writings, occupy a unique position in modern China. By looking more closely into the theoretical and fictional texts and the social-historical subtext, and through a re-examination of the issue of subjectivity and individualism, this book argues that individualism should not be treated as an ahistorical value-system, but understood within changing historical contexts; subjectivity should not be treated as an issue of personal choice, but as class-based and derived from collective community. To differentiate different subjectivities and the diversified foci of individualism in differing historical periods, Xiaoping Wang finds we need to explore the intellectuals' cultural-political strategy by situating them in the particular historical conjuncture and in the particular cultural fields. With this hermeneutical practice, the politics of recognition and the politics of style are mutually illuminated.
Autorentext
By Xiaoping Wang
Inhalt
Introduction
Part I Hu Feng's Notion of "Subjective Fighting Spirit"
Chapter One
Cultural Capital, Hegemony and the Zeitgeist
Chapter Two
Intellectuals' Politics and a Bourgeois Subjectivity
Part II Subjectivity in Lu Ling's Fiction
Chapter Three
Subjectivity in Loss: Disintegration of Traditional Family and Emergence of Desire
Chapter Four
Subjectivity in Search of: "Bildungsroman" of Modern Chinese Intellectuals
Chapter Five
Subjectivity in Vain: A Fable of the Failure of Bourgeois Social Reforms
Chapter Six
Intellectuals in Predicament: Other Stories
Part III The People and the Class Consciousness
Chapter Seven
Politics of Recognition and Politics of Style
Chapter Eight
Self-Other Relationship and the Other as the People
Chapter Nine
Lu Ling's Theory and His Fiction
Conclusion
Index
About the Author