Resonance From the Past to the Future:Mythological Metaphors in Chinese Science Fiction Films

This paper is centered on the extent to which contemporary Chinese science fiction is related to ancient Chinese mythologies according to the previous scholarly discussion and how these ancient mythologies are utilized specifically in the futuristic narratives of modern Chinese science fiction.By referring to academic dialogues,this paper argues that ancient mythologies can be recreated in modern science fiction and create modern mythologies in futuristic narratives to present or deal with modern human fears.Based on this argument,this paper then continues to explore what kinds of modern mythologies science fiction might deliver.The Chinese film The Wandering Earth(2019)will be discussed in terms of its mythological symbols and metaphors.This paper proposes a new approach through which to reconnect past stories with futuristic narratives and builds a frame in which to contextualize ancient mythologies in contemporary Chinese culture.

Doctors’Dilemma in Auspicious Pulse Diagnosis Represented in Ming-Qing Fiction

Auspicious pulse diagnosis/pregnancy diagnosis in traditional Chinese medicine involves such issues as medical skills,narrative skills,family decency,and ethics.It is an excellent case for the exploration of ethical dilemmas in traditional Chinese medical practice.The early classical medical texts such as Su Wen(Basic Questions)and Ling Shu Jing(Spiritual Pivot Canon)provide a principle-based ethical guide for doctor-patient communication,while popular fiction such as Hong Lou Meng(A Dream of Red Mansions),Yu Mu Xing Xin Bian(Stories:Entertain to Enlighten),and Feng Yue Meng(Courtesans and Opium)in the Ming and Qing dynasties present literary examples for solving ethical dilemmas.This article will analyze these texts from three perspectives.First,the doctors in the text were subject to gender order and other delicate etiquette and customs,therefore were unable to make the diagnosis without embarrassing the patients and jeopardizing family decency.Second,the narrator tends to attribute pregnancy misdiagnosis to three reasons:incomplete patient information,doctors’poor narrative competence,and doctors’corrupted medical ethics.Finally,the Ming-Qing fiction proposes three methods to solve this moral dilemma:clear pulse reading,tactful speech,and taboo challenging.This discussion of moral dilemmas in pregnancy diagnosis in traditional Chinese medical practice can be used as a reference for the localization of narrative medicine.

Edgar Lawrence Doctorow’s Ragtime:Ragtime Music and the Musicalization of Fiction

The purpose of the present paper is to explore Edgar Lawrence Doctorow’s novel Ragtime(1975)as a masterful adaptation of musical form in fiction.It demonstrates the ways in which the use of musical devices of Ragtime shapes the rhythmic/narrative structure of the novel.The article offers the reading of the novel as a musicalized fiction,or,in other words,as a form of musico-literary intermediality.It focuses on the chief characteristics of Doctorow’s novel such as a plurality of independent consciousnesses and a diversity of simultaneous points of view/voices.The novel by its very design is polyphonic.Manipulating polyrhythmic effects,mixed rhythms,repetitive phrases and leitmotifs,Doctorow is experimenting with the rhythm both on micro and macro textual levels.

In Her Mother’s House:Mother-Daughter Dissonance in Post-1990s Chinese American Fiction

This paper attempts to examine the trope of“home”and the depiction of mother-daughter dissonance“in her mother’s house”in post-1990s Chinese American fiction.The research selects four novels in the case study and focuses on how mother-daughter dissonance“in her mother’s house”is presented,what cultural connotations the trope of“home”carries and how they are affected by such extra-contextual factors as racism,sexism and classism.In comparison with two representative mother-daughter narrative works in pre-1990s period,the new characteristics and connotations of“home”in mother-daughter dissonance in post-1990s Chinese American fiction are revealed.

Research on the Foreign Communication of Chinese Science Fiction Literature in the Perspective of Public Diplomacy

In recent years,China’s public diplomacy has flourished,with literary exchanges and external communication undoubtedly becoming an essential part.Particularly with the progress of Chinese technology,science fiction literature has become a focal point both domestically and internationally.This paper investigates the background of the Chinese science fiction literature’s national characteristics,the manifestation of these characteristics in works,and the advantages of communication from three aspects.It also explores new ideas for the external communication of Chinese science fiction literature from the perspective of public diplomacy,inspiring new pathways for the integration of Chinese culture with the world,and telling Chinese stories to the world.

On William Gibson and Cyberpunk Science Fiction

Cyberpunk science fiction movement was triggered by William Gibson, and this SF genre refocuses on the impacts of technology on human and society. This tradition was abandoned by the New Wave SF with its interest on formal experiment. Cyberpunk SF is tinted with punk attitude for its rebellion against technological control and information control. With its criticism on postmodern society, cyberpunk science fiction has attracted postmodern critical attention.

The“going global”of Chinese Fantasy Fiction through the Internet:Using I Shall Seal the Heavens on Wuxiaworld.com as an Example

In the 21st century,Chinese online fantasy fiction is gaining popularity overseas.Lai Jingping,a Chinese-American widely known online as RWX,inspired by the popularity of his translation of a Chinese fantasy fiction,Coiling Dragon,established a website called Wuxiaworld.com to disseminate Chinese fantasy culture.Now it has become the largest website in the world to translate these kinds of works.This paper,in order to explore the advantages of Wuxiaworld.com,examines the translation landscape and its trends as presented on this website,and further analyzes the translation of fiction and interactive platforms using I Shall Seal the Heavens,one of the stories on the website,as an example.Our study,through text analysis and data collection,found that Wuxiaworld.com is good at hyperlink-aided translations,and has translation awareness based on the analysis of covers,synopses and glossaries;foreignization is the main translation strategy when it comes to the fantasy terms in I Shall Seal the Heavens,while annotation in text as well as hyperlinks in the forms of text,pictures and music are adopted for cultural compensation;interactive platforms,such as comments,forums and announcements,are conducive to improving translation quality and stimulating readers’enthusiasm for these translations and Chinese culture.

Science-fiction Color in Gulliver's Travels

Jonathan Swift' s novel Gulliver' s Travels was and is continuing to delight by readers of all ages,not only because its satire,a more important point is that its color of science-fiction brings readers into a world of colorful imagination and exaggerated plot.Science-fiction color of prophecy reflected in traffic,weirdness in politics and hyperbole in the characters.All these factors are analyzed according to the original version of the Gulliver' s Travels.

Criticism on the Critical Approaches in J. Hillis Miller's Fiction and Repetition:Seven English Novels

Fiction and Repetition is and will remain a distinguished deconstructionist guide of literary criticism. However, after detailed and systematic research, I also find some shortcomings in this important academic work: Firstly, written in the metaphysical language, Fiction and Repetition can never succeed in escaping the logocentrism and binary opposition inherent in this language.Secondly, based on Saussure's argument on langue, the monograph's view of indeterminacy of literary work's meaning is theoretically correct but practically inadequate. Last but not the least, Miller's proposal on repetition also has some limitations. By taking into account both the work's merits and demerits, we can gain a more comprehensive outlook on Miller's idea of repetition as well as the deconstruction theory of literary criticism in general.

A Playing Game——On the Relationship between Fiction & Reality in Continuityof Parks

In postmodernist novel, the explanation of the relationship between fiction and reality is a distinctive feature, known as a playing game. In Continuity of Parks, the "game" is played through the application of colors, settings, props, etc. with the plots' evolution. It is helpful to appreciate the postmodernist novel by analysing the relationship.

An Analysis of Fictional Dialogues of Love in a Fallen City in the Light of Relevance Theory

Although literary works are imaginary,they are based on careful observations of the real world.The fictional world is an imitation of the real world.So there is a strong similarity between them.The character utterances in fictions may be artificial in reality,but they are true in fictions.Therefore,pragmatic theories also have validity for literary interaction in theory.The au thor analyzes the fictional dialogues in Eileen Chang' s novel——Love in a Fallen City under the framework of the communica tion model based on Relevance Theory.In the academic field,Relevance Theory has been applied to explain a wide range of phenomena in translation,stylistics,phonology,and English teaching.However,the researches on mass communication discourse are still on the development.

A Pragmatic-Stylistic Analysis of Fictional Dialogues in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Short Story“Come Rain or Come Shine”

This study investigates the applicability and effectiveness of pragmatic-stylistic analysis in fictional dialogues.Taking Kazuo Ishiguro’s short story“Come Rain or Come Shine”in Nocturnes:Five Stories of Music and Nightfall as a case study,a detailed analysis of four fictional dialogues in this story has been conducted in the light of the cooperative principle,the im/politeness theory,and the turn-taking theory.The study has shown that pragmatic-stylistics offers a useful analytical tool in guiding readers to stylistically read character speech forms and interpret textual cues in conversation so as to gain a better insight into the characters’traits,their power relationships as well as the acceleration and deceleration in the narrative development.

The Art of Combining History and Fiction

SIMON Sebag Montefiore is tall, lean and full of energy. Born in London in 1965, he is one of the world’s best-selling authors of history and fiction. The celebrated historian is also a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

A Stylistic Analysis of Hemingway＇s News and Fiction Writing

Literature about Hemingway＇s writing style has been fully explored in the past 80 years, while his style has not yet been well probed into from the perspective of corpus-based stylistics. This paper focuses on the analysis of his writing style as a news reporter and as a literary writer in order to investigate whether there exists some links between the two or whether his training as a reporter has any effect on his writing as fiction writer. By employing a corpus-based stylistic approach, the paper analyzes in great details Hemingway＇s early news writing in Kansas City Star （ 1917-1918） and his later fiction writing in the novella The Old Man and the Sea （1952）. The stylistic features at lexical level are explored quantitatively in both writings via statistical data. The paper concludes that Hemingway＇s writing style has his own heritage. The style in his early news articles does find its way into his later fiction writing. There do exist certain similarities in the choices of lexical items and phrasal expressions. It also indicates that a further exploration on their syntactic, rhetorical, and discourse levels is needed ira fuller picture of Hemingway＇s writing style is to be unveiled.

Fiction, Docudrama and Joumalism in the Globo Group （Grupo Globo）： A Memory of the Brazilian Military Dictatorship Directed at the General Public

From the early days of the moving image and its recordings of facts and events considered to be historical, followed by the consolidation of the classic narrative cinema grammar in the 1910s reaffirmed until today by a large part of the television production that turns to the past, without disregarding authorial aesthetic experiences produced especially since the 1920s, history has been present for over more than a century in several types of media. Movie theaters, people＇s homes and, nowadays, thanks to new media technology, any and every place are spaces for projecting historical narratives. They are both entertainment--by deploying strategies for constructing a ＂truth＂ about the past--and critical reflection, going against a belief in that possibility, in rendering explicit their nature as a language. Since all of these narratives presuppose an audience, a public, within different genres, styles and formats, with more realist overtones, more to the general public＇s taste, or anti-naturalist, in experiences for smaller audiences, it seems pertinent to discuss these issues considering that audiovisual narratives are powerful agents in constructing a memory of the past. Particularly in this text, we will examine how the most powerful communication enterprise in Brazil - Global Group - had construct a memory of the Brazilian military dictatorship （1964-1985） until 2016.

From Raccontami to I Medici, From Karol to Luisa Spagnoli： Narrative Formats and Collective Memory in Italian Fiction

This paper rethinks critically the Italian serial production of fiction, in recent years, placing it in relation to the dynamics of collective memory. The analysis starts from two Italian fiction： Raccontami, the history of a family returns the great changes of the 60s＇; I Medici dedicated to the biography of the great Florentine Renaissance banker family, exemplified by similar international productions （including the Borgia） and subject to strong promotion by Rai 1. Around these two lines of address is also the analysis of some miniseries among these biopics dedicated to figures of the national imagination such as pontiffs, doctors, partisans, entrepreneurs. If the twentieth century was defined as the ＂century of testimony＂ this is also due to the massive and pervasive presence of media that are often at the center of the processes of transformation and transition of the public and cultural life of societies. Television, in particular, confirms itself as the real, symbolic and rhetorical place in which historical events unfold, to be, on some occasions, a substitute simulacrum. Fiction, as a form of popular narrative and reworking, is an intermediary and central element in the processes of building the social imagery and collective memory, responding to the need for a typical tale of every society.

Are There Tea Parties on Mars？ Business and Politics in Science Fiction Films

This paper will apply a politically oriented description-critique paradigm developed from the works of Whitehall and Grewell that offers a way to examine works of popular culture, particularly Mars-based science fiction films. Because of the unique nature of these films, primarily which they are set in a future and distant world, they allow us to explore the socio-political landscape in which they were created from a remove that does not exist in ＂real-world＂ based works. Specifically we will be examining the governing power （in any particular Mars-based science fiction film） that might be either wielded by business interests or governmental interests. Although it is possible to have both a strong government and a strong business in a society, in many Mars-based science fiction films, government and business seem to represent two sides of a continuum. The stronger the business power structure in the film, the weaker the governmental power structure, and vice-versa.

Application of Literary Theory in Teaching Literature——A Case Study From ＂Approaching Fiction＂ in China Youth University of Political Studies

For most universities and colleges in China, literary theory is taught at the graduate level of literary studies. Most English teachers think literary theory is such a complex field with jargon-ridden disciplines and concepts that it is often considered as ＂a hot potato＂ in classroom teaching. Based on a case study from ＂Approaching Fiction＂ in China Youth University of Political Studies （CYUPS）, the present paper claims that application of literary theory in teaching literature not only greatly broadens students＇ horizon but also deepens their interpretation and understanding of literary works. With proper selection of teaching material and carefully designed teaching approaches, application of critical theory plays an increasingly important role in the undergraduate literature classroom.

“The Impression of Reality”： Fiction and Testimony in Dostoevsky＇s Notes

Truth of fiction might sound like a paradox, at least within the Platonic doxa. But perhaps there is no truth without fiction; Plato＇s own myths would testify to this necessary combination of ＂history＂ and ＂story＂ （histoire, storia, Geschichte, etc.）. Still, it might be not enough simply to affirm the necessity of fictional narrative for an historical account. In some cases, it would be difficult to accept a fictional aspect of historical testimony. Jorge Semprdn claims, on the other hand, that only fiction is able to communicate a traumatic, ＂unbearable＂ experience such as the one of prison camps. He refers to the work of Fyodor Dostoevsky as his model. My paper analyzes this testimonial aspect of Dostoevsky＇s Notes, especially the Notes from a Dead House. It shows, the particularity of this work, which combines an intense personal experience with a fictional elaboration, a quasi-novelistic setting, plot, and characters. I claim that in a sense such a combination might be considered as a model for literature in general, for its testimonial value, for its truth.

Under the Veil of Science Fiction： Katniss＇ Initiation in the Hunger Games Trilogy

The success of the Hunger Games trilogy to the young readers is its distinctive blending of science fiction elements with protagonist Katniss＇ initiation. The trilogy suffices youth＇s interest to embrace a fiction that dramatizes both realistic and fantastic portray of the world. Through depicting the intellectual and social development of protagonist Katniss who, after experiencing both defeats and triumphs in a dystopian world, Suzanne Collins successfully conveys the coming-of-age theme under the veil of science fiction in the Hunger Games trilogy.