基于“代际”视角谈海外华人学者对“传统”与“现代”的两难选择——从“五四”传统说开去

The Optional Dilemma between Tradition and Modernization by Overseas Chinese Scholars from the Perspectives of Intergeneration——Based on the tradition of the May Fourth Movement

上世纪七八十年代,海外思潮在学术界风声涌起,"五四"的历史定位及其现代性等相关问题再次成为华人学者讨论的焦点,在诸如夏氏兄弟、李欧梵、王德威等几代海外学人的共同影响之下,我们对"五四"的认识显然增添了更多域外文化的参考因素。总体来看,无论是基于思想理论层面所谓"抒情传统"、"被压抑的现代性",抑或是实践方法上"同情之批评"、"创造性转化"等等,海外华人学者虽着眼于"五四",但其脉络似乎更强调了"传统"作为精神源泉的"向心力"特征。这种在"远传统"与"近传统"之间来回穿梭的"边缘性话语",恰恰反映了他们在不同历史背景与代际观念下矛盾的个体知识建构与心理文化特征。从资源、身份、师承关系等方面比较这几代学者之间的思想差异,重点探讨他们在"传统"与"现代"的纠缠之中贯穿的一个核心理念,即对"五四"精神内涵的深度挖掘与重建问题,以便更好地把握现代文学海外研究的脉络和走向。

With the upsurge of overseas trends of thought in the academia in seventies and eighties of last century,the issues relevant to the historical position and the modernity of May 4th movement become a focus discussed by Chinese scholars once again. Under the common influence of several generations of overseas scholars,such as Xia’s brothers,Leo Lee and David Wang,our understanding of this movement have been attached with more related factors of overseas culture. Generally when it comes to the notions of "the lyrical tradition"and "the suppressed modernity"based on the ideological theory or "the sympathetic criticism"and "the creative transformation"used in rational practice,the overseas Chinese scholars seem to think more of the tradition as the centripetal force of spiritual source,even though they keep an eye to the May 4th"movement. These marginal words shuttling back and forth between the ancient times and today reflect the inconsistent construction of scholars’ personal knowledge and the trait of their psychological culture under the different historical background and the varied intergeneration view.Comparing the ideological differences of these scholars of several generations in the aspects of resources,status,mentoring relationship and so on this article mainly discusses the core idea in their option of "tradition"and "modernity",which is to excavate and reconstruct the spiritual connotation of May 4thmovement in order to better understand the modern literature research and its developing direction abroad.