飞散的文化和文学

Cultures and Literatures of Diaspora

“飞散”是表述当今知识特征的一个重要符号,是全球化、后殖民时代一种文化(包括文学)观念,认为文化跨越边界以旅行(即“飞散”)的方式繁衍,是当今文化生产、文化生成的趋势。一种文化要有效地表述自身的差异,却必须参与跨民族、跨文化的关联:这个二律背反是后殖民批评对当今文化生产的看法,也是“飞散”的视角。此文着重讨论Diaspora的这一层语义,认为从以上视角出发,它已经具备了当代文化研究和文学研究的内涵,已经不局限于“离开自己家园”的社会学概念。同时,从理论的不同侧面,阐释以“飞散”译Diaspora的内在理由。

Diaspora, a word with Greek origin, has emerged as a new signifier whose semantics now go beyond the anthropological view of a people living away from their homeland. The reconstituted semantics indicate a new thinking of the global age that culture is increasingly (re)produced in transnational networks and cultural production is to be best understood as something border-crossing, traveling, translational and hybridized. The author proposes “飞散” as the new Chinese translation to better indicate the semantic change and to return to the metaphorical origin of the word. The article reviews the evolution of “diaspora,” examines the various uses of the concept and surveys how diasporic consciousness is transforming literary writing and the basis for aesthetic judgment. The second half of the article explores three dimensions of the theory of diaspora: diaspora and the logic of beyond, transnational culture and cultural translation, diaspora and multi-historicism.