In the original concept, the "Humanistic Reading Thought Map" was just an attempt to collect publishing suggestions - the industry needed to understand what shining works the academic community had found, and the academic community also hoped that the publishing industry would pay attention to the jade they found. So in the last month of 2021, Book Review Weekly gathered the strength of the entire editorial department to ask the following three questions to the humanities and creators who are in contact with us:
Questions you will continue to think about in 2021;
Which work you are following in 2021 that has not attracted sufficient attention or has not been introduced for publication;
What kind of original Chinese works do you expect to see?
In the end, we get far beyond the level of "recommendations". As the New Year approached, the editorial board withdrew a total of 74 responses, with a total word count of more than 50,000 words. The words with both emotional and speculative density weave a reading thought map that presents the connection between tradition and modernity, the future and the present, and their reading and inquiry in the dimension of their own lives or research record 2021, although meandering and turbulent, but still full of desire for sincere love and the need to reshape the connection between people.
This article is the answer of three writers and scholars, Jing Kaixuan, Xia Shang and Sheng Wenqiang, to the above three questions.
Questions to keep thinking about
Jing Kaixuan, Ph.D. in Ancient Chinese Literature, is a professor at the School of Overseas Education of Nanjing University.
Jing Kaixuan: This year is still in the midst of the epidemic, witnessing the world's century-old drastic changes, I feel very deeply, reading and thinking more and more focus on the comparison of Chinese and Western concepts, from the original culture of the Axial Era, the East and the West are divided, each is good at winning, what are the similarities and differences in the universality of its origins, how has it been integrated in recent times, how will it evolve in the future, and all kinds of values and concepts are presented through literature, so the object of study is still between Chinese and Western literary concepts, intending to refer to each other and open up. This year's humble work "Goodbye to the Shining Stars - Twenty Tang Poems" came out, using Western speculative ideas to explore Chinese rich and beautiful literature, which is the embodiment of this effort. In the future, the study of governance should not be able to reach this scope, and eventually it will still fall on the reshaping of Chinese culture.
Xia Shang: 2021 is still the year of the plague, compared to the previous atmosphere of fear, at least for me, I don't take the new crown too seriously. Strategic defiance, tactical adherence to science, two shots of vaccine, recently planned to get a third shot to enhance antibodies ... Restaurants eat, malls take photos, friends take photos... In short, back to the state of normal life, a coronavirus that is influenzaizing is nothing to be afraid of, excessive timidity will only destroy people's will, but also destroy social order and economy.
More time, hide in the hut into a unity. Advance that old Shanghai novel that has been written for more than six years. The reason why the novel is written more and more slowly, on the one hand, because of the migration to New York, the transoceanic moving project is huge, which distracts a lot of energy. On the other hand, there is a growing need to know about history. The city is one of the greatest inventions of mankind, and the narrative of the city and the narrative of the countryside are very different in technique and concept. Shanghai history is now a prominent science (from the perspective of urban history, its importance may be second only to Jerusalem, New York, and Istanbul). Like my last novel set in Shanghai, The Chronicle of the East Coast, the novel at hand is still based on real geography and historical frames, to trace the roots from a large number of documents, from the huge and complicated historical gaps, with the patience of sitting on the cold bench to salvage materials, to do the way of learning to write novels, is a consciousness formed in my creation.
Sheng Wenqiang: I have been thinking about the current transformation of traditional image resources, and will launch a series of image works next year, involving traditional Chinese visual images such as New Year paintings and scrolls. At present, the vision of young people is occupied by Japanese comics and American comics, the so-called "national tide" is also not the same, the mascots launched in various places are earthy and ugly, quite the style of the street neighborhood committee exhibition board, what led to the loss of aesthetics? This is also a question worth constantly thinking about.
Books to watch
Jing Kaixuan: The new book I read this year, Wang Dongjie's "Sages in the Townships: Yan Yuan and the Transformation of Ming and Qing Thought" (Nanjing University Press, 2021), impressed me deeply.
At the time of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, intellectuals reviewed the lessons of the Ming Dynasty, reflected on the empty talk of ming confucianism, and created the qing dynasty practical studies, especially the three great Confucians of Gu, Huang, and Wang, while at the same time Yan Yuan and Li Yuan were even more thoroughly opposed to Song Ming Daoistism, returned to primitive Confucianism, emphasized acquired experience and lightened innate life, and advocated qi as the mainstay, reason in matters, opposed the Taoist atmosphere of observing and not practicing, emphasizing the study of practice that is applied to the world, and its theory was preoccupied with etiquette, although it lacked achievements in ideology, and its depth was not as deep as the three major Confucianism. However, the news of the times revealed in it is very important, just like the modern philosophy of the West back to Greek philosophy, from epistemology to survival, from contemplation to action. It was only because the Qing Dynasty government was afraid of the knowledgeable people to study and govern the cultivation of reclamation, equal fields, and water conservancy, so that the intellectuals did not dare to govern the recent history, and the learning of Yan and Li eventually became a resounding sound, which is already known to all today.
The Sages in the Township: Yan Yuan and the Transformation of Ming and Qing Thought, by Wang Dongjie, Edition: Nanjing University Press, September 2021
Mr. Wang Dongjie's book clarifies Yan Xue, uses psychohistory methods, combines Yan Yuan's era and background, reconstructs Yan Yuan's life deeds, and explores the problems he faces, thus revealing the activities of folk thinkers and the spread and integration of elite ideas in the folk; it is particularly worth mentioning that the author uses folklore knowledge to collect relevant folk materials, including legends and stories, and makes a rigorous examination of this, so as to present the cultural outlook of the early Qing Dynasty and enlighten the contemporary era, which can be described as the face of the students of history. The book combines ideas and historical facts in one furnace, and although it is the work of scholars, it is highly readable.
Xia Shang: The reading in 2021 still revolves around the history of Shanghai, there are new readings and re-readings, and the following books are recommended:
"A Jewish Shanghai Memory 1927-1952" (by Lilian Willens, Sanlian Bookstore, January 2018, first edition), the history of Belarus in the French Concession, has a strong sense of picture and can be read as a novel.
"My Life in the Fall of Shanghai from 1942 to 1945" (by Yan Bin, People's Publishing House, June 2015, first edition), the diary of an ordinary Shanghai citizen, because of its ordinary, appears to be real and unpretentious.
"Magic Capital" (by Muramatsu Kaze, Shanghai People's Publishing House, March 2018, first edition), the Republic of China Shanghai in the eyes of Japanese travel writers, the word magic capital comes from this book.
"Northern Jiangsu people in Shanghai, 1850-1980" (han Qilan, Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House & Shanghai Far East Publishing House, August 2004, first edition), writing about modern Shanghai, if you do not write about northern Jiangsu, at least a quarter of the persuasiveness is missing, this pamphlet, although thin, dissects the texture of the northern Jiangsu ethnic group...
The key recommendation is "Outside the Neon Lights - Shanghai in Daily Life in the Early 20th Century" (by Lu Hanchao, Shanxi People's Publishing House, First Edition, September 2018), which lists a large number of details of life in modern Shanghai, and has a lot of data to match, combined with the residual memories of the old city of Shanghai when I was young (until the 1970s and 1980s, Shanghai still retained a considerable degree of old appearance, and gradually disappeared after reopening), quite three-dimensional presentation of the style of that year, both the rigor of academic books and the interesting writing.
"Outside the Neon Lights", by (American) Lu Hanchao, translators: Duan Lian, Wu Min, Ziyu, edition: Shanxi People's Publishing House, September 2018
There is also a ten-volume set of "Rare Shanghai Historical Materials Series" (Xiong Yuezhi, Editor-in-Chief, Shanghai Bookstore Publishing House, July 2012, first edition) that I accidentally bought, and only 600 sets were printed by looking at the copyright page. This set of hardcover books contains a lot of cold and savvy Shanghai common sense, as well as a lot of applause and gossip, in a sense, can be regarded as Shanghai's wild history encyclopedia, when it comes to wild history, it always gives people a sense of plausibility, but I think "wild history is the right history", and these five words as a new long inscription.
Sheng Wenqiang: Shibusawa Ryuhiko's Voyage of Prince Takaoka. Prince Takagaoka set off from the sea, from Japan to Tianzhu, experienced the fantasy drifting on the sea, encountered demon beasts and sea monsters, and also turned the danger into a disaster, equivalent to the ocean version of "Journey to the West", multiple stories are interspersed, can be divided and combined. We lack such maritime literature.
The Voyages of Prince Takahashi, by (Japanese) Ryūhiko Shibusawa, translated by Yao Yiwei, edition: Shanghai Beibeit Guangxi Normal University Press, June 2021
Looking forward to the original work
Sheng Wenqiang: I hope to see original works with real text awareness, but I don't want to see a group of long-sleeved and good dancers "works" that are written as childishly as middle school students' essays, and are praised, which is the biggest irony of the moment and a kind of corruption.
The author | the interviewee
Editor | Zhang Jin
Proofreading | Lucy