Shifting Chinese literary theory: on the recent ideological trend of “counter-West centralism” in Chinese literary theory research

Abstract

The ideological trend of counter-West centralism  is becoming more and more obvious in the academic circle of Chinese literary theory from the 1980s to the beginning of this century. This article regards a certain number of phenomena as surveying targets, and analyzes that this ideological trend is embodied not only in evident purposes, slogans and views, but also in the re-thinking of education history and in the work of literary material and the reestablishing of criticism history. This article holds that the combination of two kinds of opposed learning trends for study and application respectively would be helpful in breaking through the barriers of single-sided logic, emphasizing native literary tradition, participating in contemporary literature practice and defining Chinese literary theory in the 21st century.