百年前美国文学学界的易中天-于丹现象

The Yi Zhongtian’s and Yu Dan’s in the 1900’s Field of Literary Studies in the United States

20世纪初,美国英语文学学界出现了一批对抗学术、专事文化普及、相仿于易中天等明星学者的通才学者。作为社会进步、学科发展的结果与标志,通才学者颇具现代和物质性的个性追求与活动方式、颇为传统和道德性的人文立场与美学选择,在协助商业集团将大众文学阅读消费化的同时,也在大众中培养了阅读意识、民族精神以及文化自信。尽管如此,通才学者仍以走向学科边缘而告终,成为大众文化与文学学科彻底疏离的促动者与见证者。但是,通才学者从学界的退却并不意味着其人文理念的真正消亡,他们与专才学者的对抗,如今仍以不同的矛盾形式存在于美国文学学界之内,存在于文学学界与大众文化之间。为此,百年前的通才现象,不仅预示着当代美国文学学界关于文学批评方法的种种矛盾与争论,也包含着当代美国文学学术的种种问题与困境。作为美国通才现象的一种异国再现,中国的易中天现象是中国人文学科部分重复了美国文学学科的问题与矛盾的见证。

The field of English literary studies in America was marked by a growing conflict and antagonism between generalists and specialists in the 1900＇ s. Generalists, cultural popularizers in the same way as contemporary China＇ s Yi Zhongtian and Yu Dan, pursued an individualistic and materialistic style of professional development but adopted a moralistic and conservative aesthetic stand. While facilitating the commercialization of the act of reading, they also helped to form the public＇ s reading habit and raise their confidence in national culture. Their eventual alienation by the academy showed themselves as witnesses and precipitators of the split between public culture and literary scholarship. But the conflicts and controversies within and outside contemporary America＇ s profession of literary studies have also pointed to the persistence of the generalist literary and educational positions. If scholars like Yi Zhongtian and Yu Dan are duplicated versions of the 1900＇ s American generalists, the humanities in Chinese universities are repeating the problems and conflicts that have afflicted the profession of literary studies in America.