The culture wars that simmer within any nation may have been escalating recently;but regardless of their national settings or milieus,many of these wars are informed by two opposing paradigms of culture.This paper ana...The culture wars that simmer within any nation may have been escalating recently;but regardless of their national settings or milieus,many of these wars are informed by two opposing paradigms of culture.This paper analyzes two of these leading paradigms,designated here as Regressivism and Progressivism.Other theorists have long chronicled the differing strengths and weaknesses of these paradigms,taking the former as expressing more conservative,traditional,and nationalistic values,and the latter as expressing more liberal,pluralistic,and cosmopolitan values.Going beyond these perennial distinctions,I argue that Progressivism is more benign and beneficial than the former-by meeting basic human needs better and supporting more effective adaptation to changing exigencies.I also argue that Progressivism does not express merely subjective or relativistic preferences and values,but objectively preferable and quantifiable ones,that benefit not only our personal lives more but also our global village and communal lives more.展开更多
The purpose of the present paper is to explore the ways in which John Steinbeck utilizes the ideas of cosmopolitanism and socialism in his masterpiece The Grapes of Wrath(1939)interweaving them into the U.S.reality of...The purpose of the present paper is to explore the ways in which John Steinbeck utilizes the ideas of cosmopolitanism and socialism in his masterpiece The Grapes of Wrath(1939)interweaving them into the U.S.reality of the 1930s.It also deals with the term“global literature”,taking it as a starting point for the analysis of Steinbeck’s novel.Taking the lead of Wai-Chee Dimock,the author views American literature as no longer a sovereign literary domain,but as a blend of literatures that are ever evolving and multiplying,interweaving with other cultures.From this standpoint,the paper discusses The Grapes of Wrath in terms of transnational imagination,placing it into the scope of the“world literature”.It is an attempt to identify the“connective tissues”that make the novel belong to the global literature and investigate how they are represented in the text.展开更多
Due to its construction of an image of modern Chinese philosopher who comments and reflects on what he has seen in England in comparison to China,Oliver Goldsmith’s The Citizen of the World(1760)has contradictorily b...Due to its construction of an image of modern Chinese philosopher who comments and reflects on what he has seen in England in comparison to China,Oliver Goldsmith’s The Citizen of the World(1760)has contradictorily been interpreted in two ways:One considers it as an orientalist discourse denigrating Chinese culture,while the other takes is as an utopian fabrication idealizing Chinese culture.Seeking“difference”between English and Chinese cultures is the underlying logic of these two types of interpretations.On the contrary,rooting on the“sameness”between them,this essay offers a new understanding about The Citizen of the World through a close textual analysis.The aim is to demonstrate how The Citizen of the World makes use of the image of Chinese philosopher to represent English cosmopolitanism featured with“polite”and“universal”and how the principle of equality operates through English cosmopolitanism.展开更多
文摘The culture wars that simmer within any nation may have been escalating recently;but regardless of their national settings or milieus,many of these wars are informed by two opposing paradigms of culture.This paper analyzes two of these leading paradigms,designated here as Regressivism and Progressivism.Other theorists have long chronicled the differing strengths and weaknesses of these paradigms,taking the former as expressing more conservative,traditional,and nationalistic values,and the latter as expressing more liberal,pluralistic,and cosmopolitan values.Going beyond these perennial distinctions,I argue that Progressivism is more benign and beneficial than the former-by meeting basic human needs better and supporting more effective adaptation to changing exigencies.I also argue that Progressivism does not express merely subjective or relativistic preferences and values,but objectively preferable and quantifiable ones,that benefit not only our personal lives more but also our global village and communal lives more.
文摘The purpose of the present paper is to explore the ways in which John Steinbeck utilizes the ideas of cosmopolitanism and socialism in his masterpiece The Grapes of Wrath(1939)interweaving them into the U.S.reality of the 1930s.It also deals with the term“global literature”,taking it as a starting point for the analysis of Steinbeck’s novel.Taking the lead of Wai-Chee Dimock,the author views American literature as no longer a sovereign literary domain,but as a blend of literatures that are ever evolving and multiplying,interweaving with other cultures.From this standpoint,the paper discusses The Grapes of Wrath in terms of transnational imagination,placing it into the scope of the“world literature”.It is an attempt to identify the“connective tissues”that make the novel belong to the global literature and investigate how they are represented in the text.
文摘Due to its construction of an image of modern Chinese philosopher who comments and reflects on what he has seen in England in comparison to China,Oliver Goldsmith’s The Citizen of the World(1760)has contradictorily been interpreted in two ways:One considers it as an orientalist discourse denigrating Chinese culture,while the other takes is as an utopian fabrication idealizing Chinese culture.Seeking“difference”between English and Chinese cultures is the underlying logic of these two types of interpretations.On the contrary,rooting on the“sameness”between them,this essay offers a new understanding about The Citizen of the World through a close textual analysis.The aim is to demonstrate how The Citizen of the World makes use of the image of Chinese philosopher to represent English cosmopolitanism featured with“polite”and“universal”and how the principle of equality operates through English cosmopolitanism.
