“风”起“浪”涌40年:海外华文文学研究的变迁与展望

Changes and Prospects of Overseas Chinese Literature Research

海外华文文学研究经历四十余年的发展,在概念辨析、方法思路等方面取得长足进步。整个过程经历“求同”“存异”到“综理”的发展阶段,研究的整体意识和比较特性逐渐显现。“海外华文文学”从概念上指代的并不仅仅是一种空间地域上的特殊文学类型,更是一种“错位地”思考全球现代性的“文化事件”。海外华文文学研究持续辩证内外、华夷、主次、正变、动静等问题,以思考“中国性”和“本土性”作为自身最关键的问题。它以对“根”和“径”的探讨来说明身份政治的复杂性和在地性,也借对“势”的挖掘来说明身份确立过程中所充盈的伺机而动、蓄势待发的能量和流动性。晚近提出的“华语语系”“华夷风土”等观念,是海外华文文学研究的最新动向。前者力图以差异和少数实现对抗,后者则关切文学和自然、社会、精神等层面的紧密联通关系,强化文学的人间面向,回应文学的本体论问题。但无论是对抗还是对话,这两个新的观念都驱使我们注意海外华文文学内蕴的流动、联通特性。它处理的不仅是中国文学的源流、中外文学的关系,更是对所有少数跨国主义文学实践的思辨。如同风浪的往返律动,海外华文文学代表了在不同的文化经验之间做来回对话折冲的过程,这一过程有助于我们思考并凝练一种基于对话和关系的“海洋诗学”。

After more than 40 years of development,overseas Chinese literature research has made great progress in terms of concept discrimination,methods and ideas.The process has gone through three stages—“seeking common ground,”“reserving differences”and“literary governance”—through which the overall consciousness and comparative characteristics of the research gradually emerged.The concept of“overseas Chinese literature”refers not only to a special type of literature in special space or place,but also to a“misplaced”thinking about global modernities.Taking Chineseness and locality as the most critical issues of its own,overseas Chinese literature research continues to discuss the relationships between internal and external,Chinese and foreign,primary and secondary,variants and invariants,etc.It illustrates the complexity and locality of identity politics by discussing root and route,and also illustrates the energy and mobility that are fulfilled in the process of identity establishment by discussing“shi.”The concepts of“Sinophone”and“Sinophone/Xenophone Mesology”put forward recently are the latest trends in overseas Chinese literature research.The former tries to emphasize differences and minorities,while the latter concerns about the close connection between literature and nature,society,spirit and other aspects,strengthens the human condition,and responds to the ontology of literature.Both of these new concepts drive us to pay attention to the mobility and inherent connectivity of overseas Chinese literature.It deals not only with the development of Chinese literature and the relationship between Chinese and foreign literature,but also with speculation on the practice of all minority transnational literature.Like the back-and-forth rhythm of oceans,overseas Chinese literature represents the process of persistent dialogue between different cultural experiences,which helps us to think about and refine a marine poetics.