After entering the 20th century, great changes have taken place in the Chinese language, especially in terms of vocabulary. This change is not a simple increase in the number of words, but reflects a paradigm shift. The change involves not only nouns, but also a large number of verbs and adjectives, which this article calls “modern reconstruction of vocabulary system”. This article argues that the realization of scientific narration based on the consistency of words and texts is the fundamental motivation of language modernization; the reconstruction of Chinese vocabulary system can be basically completed in a short period of time, mainly due to the language contact within the cultural circle of Chinese characters in East Asia, which is also an important driving force for the rapid two character transformation of Chinese vocabulary. This paper gives a bird’s-eye view of the nature, new concepts and new forms of lexicalization, especially the interaction between Chinese and Japanese vocabulary.

Eastern Learning (Dongxue 东学), which is an important part of modern new learning, refers to the Western natural science and socio-political thought that was assimilated by Japan from the end of 19th century to the beginning of 20th century. From the end of Ming Dynasty to the period before and after the revolution of 1911, China’s intake of new learning went through four stages. In the first three stages, a large number of Western books translated into Chinese were also introduced into Japan, which became the basic literature and language medium of Japanese Dutch studies, English Studies and later the whole foreign studies. At the beginning of the 20th century, exiles, students studying in Japan and Japanese teachers introduced Eastern Learning into China, which had a profound impact on China’s modernization process. Eastern Learning is a new learning system with East Asian characteristics constructed by China and Japan in the process of Western Learning (Xixue 西学) spreading to the East.

The study of German Begriffsgeschichte (conceptual history) by scholars such as Koselleck focuses on historiography, but its basic hypotheses are highly philosophical. One of its tasks is to explore modernity from the perspective of language, hence can be understood as the “linguistic approach” in the study of modernity. As for the origin of the theory, the conceptual evolution of Verzeitlichung (temporalization), Demokratisierung (democratization), Politisierung (politicization), and Ideologisierbarkeit (ideologicalization) proposed by Koselleck was not only largely affected by Gadamer’s hermeneutics and Heidegger’s existential phenomenology but also deeply influenced by Carl Schmitt’s political philosophy. In Koselleck’s view, conceptual upheaval in the revolutionary era from 1750 to 1850 was, essentially, a semantic struggle in which old and new forces competed fiercely.

This paper analyzes the processes of cross-lingual, transnational, and cross-cultural communication and interaction of world literary classics. The author argues that world literary classics are actually the result of the variation of the exchanges between various “ethnic” literatures. Comparative literature is essentially a discipline of scholarly study of the synchronic developments of literature and culture. Although scholars have long recognized the perspective of variation in diachronic development, there has been less attention to variation in synchronic development. The formation of world literary classics is also closely related to the synchronic development of literature. Thus, variation studies in comparative literature not only reveal the perspective of cultural innovation but also find creativity in the variation of cultural and literary communication as well as innovation in the variation of literary interpretation.

In "The Variation of Chinese Literature and the Formation of World Literature" Shunqing Cao and Lu Zhai discuss how Chinese works of literature entered other countries' literary circles through variation, and became an essential part of world literature. Both ancient Chinese literature and contemporary Chinese literature have undergone textual circulation, language translation and cultural filtering before becoming part of world literature, all of which are the reasons why literary variation occurs. According to Cao and Zhai, the occurrence of variation is a key factor for Chinese literature to become world literature, and an important foundation for the formation of world literature. A country's literature absorbs the characteristics of other countries' literature through variation, thus adapting to the cultural background and reading habits of other countries' readers in terms of language and style, in order to enter the world literature market. Variation may lead to a certain loss of nationality in literary works, and result in significant differences from the original texts. However, the formation of world literature does not come at the cost of eliminating nationality; variation facilitates the formation of world literature.

The topics of Anthropocene literature have a perceived global relevance that is greater than that of literature in any other period in history, and Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People, Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance, and Paulo Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl show this clearly. These books hit common global registers, at once dealing with issues such as urbanization, corporate capitalism, and climate change as common concerns while vigorously valuing and affirming cultural heterogeneity. The topics of these novels virtually guarantee their position as world literature. Sinha, Mistry, and Bacigalupi offer hope rather than doom-and-gloom on topics that are of pressing global concern. In the process, they reveal that Anthropocene fiction has, by its very topicality, a propensity to being world literature, whatever the greatness or weakness of its national origin. Theorizing about world literature thus needs to grapple more decisively than it has with what cli-fi and Anthropocene fiction offer.

Classic Edward Said´s term Orientalism was widely applied to those narratives and story-telling oriented to deride, subordinate and domesticate the “Non-Western Other”. Over centuries, Europe has developed an imperial matrix that is finely enrooted in an uncanny long-dormant paternalism where “the Other” was treated as a child to educate. The European expansion was ultimately feasible according to two combined factors. The knowledge productions by the hands of scientists occupied a great position in the entertainment of global readerships, and of course, the literary fiction embodied in the figure of travel writing. This literary genre was mainly marked by the presence of a European adventurer who launched to colonize an unknown (uncivilized) world. Travel writings spoke us of the native language of travelers who interrogated furtherly the natives. The present paperwork centers on what Derrida dubbed as “the axiom of hospitality” which means the power of language to control and domesticate the “Other”. The lingua franca not only represents the language of empire but also from the lords. In this way, world Language plays a leading role in giving a great cosmology of the surrounding world as well as legitimating the imperial expansion.

In "Literary Variation of Indian Buddhist Stories in Chinese 志怪 (Zhiguai) Novels," Wei Guo discusses Buddhist Sutra scriptures which have been a reservoir of inspiration for Zhiguai novels since their first introduction in Chinese literature. Buddhist texts were less relevant for the "documentary" tradition of Chinese literature owing to their rough structure, vague context, and lack of a sense of history and reality, since they were originally intended as texts of didacticism. Hence, in order to integrate these exotic literary materials with local aesthetic concepts, Chinese writers explored creative adaptations including the addition of adding detail, linguistic embellishments, and the endowment of each story with specific narrative scenes in terms of character, place, and time. Guo argues that Indian Buddhist stories have been remolded in Zhiguai novels and transformed from imaginary religious literature into figurative and documentary literature whereby the convergence of the source texts with the target texts shows the processes of formation of world literature(s).

Through an analysis of the work of the Yi (彝) poets, Aku Wuwu, Jidi Majia, and Jimu Langge, this paper discusses the significance of Yi literature in translation, circulation, and production, with an additional focus on the development of minority literature in the context of world literature. A variety of factors enable the translation of ethnic minority literature, including the content and characteristics of the literature itself, the cultural ideologies and literary values of societies, and the personal motivations of authors and translators. In turn, the translation and distribution process introduce the unique experiences of the minority subject into the realm of world literature. Presenting ethnic minority literature in various forms, including recitation performance and multimedia, these Yi poets enhance the range of sensory experiences for readers while drawing attention to poetic traditions and enriching the ways in which world literature circulates. Moreover, the travels of ethnic minority writers introduce new cross-cultural writing and advances world literature’s ideals of prosperity, equality, and freedom. In sum, Yi literature represents a global development of ethnic minority literature as “anthropological literature” that enriches the content of world literature.

In "Canonization and Variations of Shakespeare's Work in China," Qing Yang discusses the role of cross-linguistic and inter-cultural variations with regard to William Shakespeare's intercultural travel and canonization in China. In the context of globalization, Shakespeare's texts outside Western cultures undergo cross-national, cross-linguistic and inter-cultural variations in the process of translation. From a symbol of Western powers and cultures to a bearer of Confucianism, a fighter for the survival of the nation during the anti-Japanese struggle, and to a literary master with abundant possibilities of interpretation and adaption today, Shakespeares (in the plural to indicate the multiple texts of Shakespeare) change and vary in modern and contemporary China. The inter-cultural communication of Shakespeare with clear markings of Chinese culture and history progresses through variation. Yang argues that it is the paradigm of Shunqing Cao’s variation theory central to the formations of world literature(s) that has facilitated the canonization of Shakespeare’s work in China.

If we inspect closely the works that ascend to world literature from the peripheral, David Damrosch’s well-recognized argument that “world literature is writing that gains in translation” may need some revision, because apparently translation is not the sole factor that decides the formation of world literature. Translated works do not necessarily represent the best part in one national literature. Damrosch’s overemphasis on translation differences and untranslatability in world literature tends to overlook the syncretism of heterogeneous literatures: The influence of Roman Empire on Indian Buddhism, the influx of elements from Indian, Arabic, and Persian stories into European writers’ creation, the genres of China’s ancient literature influenced by Buddhism, etc. Furthermore, a great deal of Chinese idioms and allusions appearing in Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese literatures provide us a general view of how world literature forms through exchange and syncretism. On this account, Damrosh’s argument may be reformulated as “world literature is writing that gains in variation.” Variation reflects the ability to absorb otherness and then to create something new. Meanwhile, the perspective of literary syncretism will help us reasonably distinguish world literature and national canons.

In "On Variations of the Classical Chinese Literary Genre terminchinesescript (Fu) in Literary History," the authors analyze the representation of the classical Chinese literary genre Fu, or namely, rhapsode, in Chinese literary histories compiled in English. A unique classical literary genre, Fu commonly appears in classical Chinese literature as well as in aesthetics and philosophy, thus constituting an important part in Chinese literature in all periods from ancient to contemporary. However, Fu falls outside the quartered-division of modern western stylistics, so is bound to cause problems in the compilation of a literary history in the Anglophone literary culture, as is the case in Sinology. This paper argues that variations caused in the translation of the name Fu and its configuration set-up in the English context have resulted in the under exploration of its full meanings in existing relevant studies, which necessitates future research for the sake of substantially changing the peripheral status of Chinese literature in the arena of world literature.

What kind of relationship has modernity established between knowledge and power? What forms does such a relationship take in contemporary society? Theattempt here is to enter into the merits of its new formulations, focusing attention on the degradation to which power and knowledge have been subjected. The essay also indicates a solution that does not consist in a return to the past or escape into the future, but in the possibility of viewing the present as an opportunity for cultural emancipation.

In the increasingly notorious philosophy of new materialism, a serious attempt to redefine subjectivity in terms of its non-dualistic nature can be ascertained.The criticism on dualisms draws directly on a wider critique focusing the anthropocentric and correlationist models that shaped modernity and modern thought. In this paper, I consider new materialism’s non-dualism as a starting point from which a subsequent decline of subjectivity can be purported. This decline does not involve immediately, or at all, devaluation but, instead, it is interpreted as an instance of neutralization. The neutralized subject is an underlying phenomenon ofthe ontology and the epistemology that relates closer to new materialist philosophy. New materialism’s conceptual framework draws widely on Deleuze and Latour’s thought. On what subjectivity is concerned, the concepts of “becoming” and of the “virtual” are crucial in more recent theorizations aligned with new materialism, where a commitment to overcome the barriers imposed by a central and substantial subjectivity is present (for example in Rosi Braidotti’s or Karen Barad’s writings). At the same time, the theory of assemblages and the claim for the existence and observation of the agencies of (inanimate) matter provide a further element, along with a further set of concepts that, as I claim, reinforce the becoming-neutral of the subject. In this case, the works of Manuel de Landa or Jane Bennett are seminal. Finally, when this neutralization is taken as part of a realistic post-humanist conception, the possibility of a new cultural model and a new set of values arises. The edification of a new cultural model, although not entirely intentional or socially widespread, is made possible when the neutralization of subjectivity accompanies a withdrawal of a misleading representation of its centrality and substantiality without denying the properties of its particular embodiment.

In the essay “Das Wort” (“Words”), Martin Heidegger wrote about “renunciation” (verzicht) in the context of the poetry of Stefan George. According toHeidegger the entrance into the possibility of Saying, with the capital “S” – as opposed to the chatter of every-day life – could be achieved in the instance of the poet’s deliberate acceptance of renunciation. Heidegger’s writings, including “Words,” have had an enormous influence in the second part of the 20th century on authors and thinkers alike. And yet this influence may have had a pernicious effect, at least in the opinion of some commentators. In the 2005 book L’adieu à la littérature, William Marx, for instance, claimed that the 20th century is the time of a literature sans style. If on the one hand literature achieved its autonomy, on the other it farewelled the cognitive purpose with regard to the world, which, some could argue, equates with a retreat from its civilizing purpose. This essay does two things: first it illustrates and contextualizes the notion of “renunciation” from philosophical as well as literary and cultural perspectives: second it discusses a set of authors who have experienced the category of “renunciation” in different ways and with different outcomes. I refer to Maurice Blanchot, Frances Ponge and Édouard Glissant.

A neighborhood in a US city seems to present a possibly unique exception to empirical generalizations and explanations of urban decline and occasional rehabilitation. Resisting decline, gentrification, and outside interests and actors, the neighborhood generated a subculture created by working class artists. As a valuable occasion for revising urban social theory, this essay draws on the work of Howard S. Becker, Pierre Bourdieu, Henri Lefebvre, Jacques Rancière, and Georg Simmel, among others. It relies on ethnographic method for its empirical findings.

This paper explores iconicity in the metrical structure and the cultural value of Artistic Chinese calligraphy along the lines of Carles S.Peirce’s theory. It drawsattention to the fact that there is a simple categorical correspondence between the outer forms of Artistic Chinese Calligraphy and their subject-matter, presenting it a mixed form of representation, based on resemblances but also creating its own metaphysical meanings simultaneously.

The aim of this paper is not to focus on a particular thematic issue of Aesthetics, offering an exhaustive approach of it, but to display a broader map allowingto capture the essence of this topic from an overall perspective. To achieve it, I have paid attention to a number of points that will help to place Aesthetics in historical terms in the context of 18th century Great Britain. In this vein, I have addressed certain pillars deemed crucial in understanding Aesthetics, such as the socio-historical background in which it emerged, the meaning of this field of study, its main theoreticians and its three most important aesthetic categories. Finally, I close the paper by drawing some brief conclusions.

Global era is an era of acculturation which may surface difficulties due to the tendency of becoming global chaos that may influence people’s thought. Everyonehas their own views and has made changes with their own worldview perception; hybrid and heterodox. Changes without wisdom will eliminate local elements.This phenomenon has influenced myriad forms of visual composition and architecture of Bali Madya dwelling. Balinese culture has gone through various changes since Rsi Markandeya in the 9th century, Empu Kuturan in the 10th century and Danghyang Nirartha in the 14th century. They changed many dwelling arrangements in architecture. Changes do not mean that one has to demolish the local indigenous elements but, instead, should attempt to develop various indigenous elements with the intention that the visual interior and architectural compositions have their own distinctive characters. In relation to that, aesthetic image and traditional space concept will be arranged in various kinds of acculturation in global visual forms. The dwelling space of Bali Madya concept was acculturated from the Bali Aga’s space concept during the era of Majapahit. This research is based on aesthetic and historical approach that stressed on the artistic aspects and design that are associated with aesthetic appeal. The analysis was done using observations of form and function including the meaning of space composition which was arranged to produce a proportionate composition with local images.

Value-sensitive design conceived as an a priori process is necessarily uncompleted, because the foresight needed to accommodate competing values in trueaccord with consumers’ (ever-evolving) wishes is simply unavailable ab initio. True value-sensitive design is, instead, an ongoing process of market discovery which is evolutionary in nature rather than a priori. We illustrate this generality with the landline telephone.