Between East and West/Word and Image

by GENG Youzhfuang

Overview

In Between East and West/Word and Image, Geng Youzhuang, one of China’s leading intellectuals, offers an original and sophisticated analysis of both Western cultural and literary theory and contemporary Chinese thought. In this fascinating exploration of the respective intellectual traditions within China and the West, Geng shows how the dynamics at work between word and image become a parable for understanding the larger relationship between Chinese and Western ideas.

Geng first surveys influential Western thinkers and their ideas, with a special focus on the relations between words and things, signs and meanings, image and language. He next explores the conflicted relationship between religion and literature in the West. Finally, Geng turns his focus to China, discussing the meaning and significance of sinology and the possibilities of treating China as a sign and referent in contemporary Western thinking. Anyone interested in the forces at work within the intermingling of Eastern and Western literature, writing, and the semiotics of culture, will find Between East and West/Word and Image compelling.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781481303675
Publisher:	Baylor University Press
Publication date:	02/01/2016
Pages:	216
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

GENG Youzhuang is Professor of Comparative Literature in the School of Liberal Arts at Renmin University of China.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction 1

I

1 The Construction of Language and Vision: On Roland Barthes' "Les mots et les choses" 11

2 Meditation on Flames and Ashes: Jacques Derrida's "Semiotics" 23

3 The End of Poetry and the Impossibility of Witness: On Giorgio Agamben's Poetics 41

4 "Philopainting" or "Pictophilosophy"?: Gilles Deleuze's Reading of Francis Bacon's Paintings 53

II

5 Augustine's "Self-Portrait": Confessions as a Literary Autobiography 67

6 Aesthetic Theology: Theological Aesthetics after von Bahhasar 83

7 Miracles and Revolutionary Reversals: Terry Eagleton's Theological Turn 93

8 The Rhetoric of Icons: From Image to Voice 107

III

9 Between Reality and Imagination: The Phenomenon of Contemporary Chinese Art 117

10 Gesture and L'écriture: The Chinese "Content" in Contemporary Western Philosophy of Art 123

11 Sinological Studies and Literary Imagination: A. Reflection on Sinology and a Review of Jonathan Stalling's Poetics of Emptiness 141

12 Moving Boundaries: How Can Scriptural Reasoning Enter into the Chinese Context? 157

Conclusion 167

Notes 169

Works Cited 185

Credits 195

Index 197

What People are Saying About This

Ming Dong Gu

Between East and West/Word and Image is highly informative and filled with fresh insights and thought-provoking ideas for scholars in comparative literature, cross-cultural studies, and China-West studies.

Paul Copp

Between East and West/Word and Image is a collection of remarkable breadth—from Augustine to Agamben to the international situations of Chinese poetry and art—by a major Chinese scholar. These essays make a profound contribution to a new and, perhaps for the first time, truly global conversation about philosophy, art, and religion.

Editorial Reviews

These are valuable and insightful reflections on key figures and concepts of Western and Chinese philosophy and aesthetics. They are also illuminating for both literary scholars and art historians interested in transcultural aesthetics and philosophy.

Modern Philology - Shuang Shen