Introduction

Ours could be called a post-theoretical era. In describing the decline of literary and cultural theory in the West, Terry Eagleton points out: The pioneering works of Jacques Lacan, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Louis Althusser, Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault are several decades behind us. So are the path-breaking early writings of Raymond Williams, Luce Irigary, Pierre Bourdieu, Julia Kristeva, Jacques Derrida, Hélène Cixous, Jürgen Habermas, Fredric Jameson and Edward Said. Not much has been written since has matched the ambitiousness and originality of these founding mothers and fathers.1 The golden era of theory has already become a history which can never return. Literary theory in its traditional, formalistic sense has to some extent been replaced by a type of cultural theory which does not exclusively focus on literature and literary studies. Unfortunately, even cultural theory is no longer so effective in interpreting various social and cultural phenomena, nor can it be used to solve the severe challenges facing literature and elite culture. No doubt Eagleton's pessimistic view toward contemporary literary and cultural theory represents quite a few theorists' concern about the future of the field. Confronted with his view, several scholars from China and the West have responded differently. Diverging from Eagleton's diagnosis, I argue that although literary and cultural theory has been on the decline in the West, this trend does not necessarily mean that it is on the decline elsewhere.2 The burning interest of Chinese literary theorists and scholars in various contemporary Western theories in the past decades could justify this assertion. As a result of China's opening up and economic reform, almost all the Western modern and postmodern literary currents and theoretical doctrines have flooded into China, either through translation or direct importation, exerting tremendous influence on China's literary production and theory and criticism. Some Chinese literary scholars could not but complain that we Chinese literary critics do not have our own theoretical discourse and that what we are doing in literary and critical studies cannot go beyond Western-centric theoretical discourse. Even when we write our critical works on Chinese literary works, we still dutifully apply established Western theoretical doctrines merely to prove the justification of these theories within Chinese literary practice. It is not surprising that some of my Chinese colleagues claim that Chinese literary criticism and studies suffer from a sort of “aphasia.”3 Even so, there are still some eminent Chinese literary critics and scholars who, in receiving various Western theories, have developed their own critical thinking and understanding to evaluate Western theories and offer alternatives. Some of them, not satisfied with publishing domestically, even try to directly dialogue with those influential Western theorists from their Chinese and comparative perspective.The following exchange between two eminent Chinese and Western literary theorists will reveal to our international audiences how Chinese literary scholars are enthused by Western literary theories, how they conscientiously study an important Western literary critical work and raise relevant, challenging questions, and how they are very eager to have dialogues with their Western counterparts on issues concerning literary studies. Readers will also see how a senior Western literary theorist like J. Hillis Miller patiently and seriously answers his Chinese colleague's questions and gives his dynamic responses. In this way, a dialogue between Chinese and Western literary theory and scholarship has been effectively carried out through the international lingua franca of English.As I have mentioned earlier, it is true that in the past decades, with China's opening up and economic reform, large numbers of Western academic works, especially literary theoretical and critical works, have been translated into Chinese or introduced to Chinese humanities scholars and have exerted profound influence on their critical thinking and research methodology. In today's Chinese literary-critical circles, if any literary scholar or critic is not familiar to some extent with the thought of renowned contemporary Western names such as Jacques Derrida, Jacques Lacan, Northrop Frye, Roland Barthes, Hélène Cixous, Michel Foucault, Edward Said, Fredric Jameson, J. Hillis Miller, Harold Bloom, Terry Eagleton, Gayatri Spivak, Homi Bhabha, Stephen Greenblatt, Jonathan Culler, Judith Butler, to name just a few, he or she would feel embarrassed. Even though contemporary Chinese scholars are engaged in the study of classical Chinese literary theory, they still at least know the names of the aforementioned Western theorists. They are not only familiar with their theoretical works but also consistently apply their doctrines in reading and interpreting literary works and other literary and cultural phenomena that appear in the Chinese context. Young scholars have even written doctoral dissertations on the aforementioned Western literary and cultural theorists.4While the eminent Chinese literary scholar Zhang Jiang admits that he has “repeatedly read” Miller's Fiction and Repetition and felt “deeply impressed and rewarded” after doing so, he also has “many questions and uncertain thoughts,” which led him to write a letter in an attempt to consult with Miller. Miller, one of the most influential Western literary theorists in China, is aware of the extent to which his works interest his Chinese colleagues. He did not expect, however, that his book published many years ago could still arouse such strong interest and curiosity from such an eminent scholar. He has, despite his busy schedule, spent much time patiently reading Zhang's first letter and giving it a detailed reply.Certainly, their ensuing dialogue has touched upon many interesting and important theoretical issues in reading, understanding, and interpreting literary works. In what follows, I will sum up the major ideas that emerge from their epistolary dialogue.First, because of his dissatisfaction with the doctrines of hermeneutics and the aesthetics of reception, Zhang is very much concerned with whether there is an identifiable theme in a literary work. If there is not, why does Miller try to search a universal model in his reading of certain British novels? To this question, Miller responds that “identifying a theme would be just the beginning of a thoughtful teaching, reading, or writing about a given work.” He illustrates this thought with George Eliot's Middlemarch as a typical case of a multi-themed novel. He is obviously correct in pointing out the difference between Western and Chinese reading strategies. To him, “only somewhat original readings are worth publishing, whereas Chinese scholars may assume that it is important to keep generally agreed-upon readings alive through repeating them in new essays and books.” Although Miller did not want to propose a universal model for other people's reading, his idea of “repetition” may function as or has already set up a sort of model for Chinese readers in their reading and understanding of literary works.Second, Zhang's letters express his interest, as well as that of many Chinese literary scholars in the reading and critical strategy of Deconstruction. He wants to know whether Miller himself is a deconstructionist and whether Deconstruction is negatively destroying a text or also has a positive, constructive aspect. As we know, Deconstruction has been one of the most influential contemporary Western critical theories since the 1980s even after its decline in the West, and Miller is best known in China as one of the most eminent deconstructive critics, next only to Derrida. Zhang is very curious about the inconsistency between Derrida's theoretical doctrine and Miller's practical critical work. Regarding Miller's shift of attention in his reading process, Zhang thinks that it is “difficult to understand the standpoint of deconstruction,” or his “standpoint on this matter, as there are obviously irreconcilable conflicts between theory and practice.” Miller replies that Derrida invented the word “deconstruction” on the basis of Martin Heidegger's term, Destruktion, but added “con” in the middle of Heidegger's word, so the word is both negative (de) and positive (con) at the same time. Undoubtedly, Miller's reply has solved the problem which has puzzled many Chinese literary critics and scholars in their misunderstanding of deconstructive criticism. That is, in destroying the established structuralist doctrine, deconstruction has also constructed something new which has been neglected by most Chinese scholars. Another important point that has been clarified is Miller's own positioning as a deconstructionist. Miller never identified fully with Deconstruction. Rather, his critical theory comes from different sources and his strength lies in creatively using all these different theoretical doctrines to develop his own reading strategy and critical discourse.5 He dynamically applies some of Derrida's theoretical doctrines in his critical practice, while simultaneously carrying on dialogues with his French colleague.Third, the Zhang–Miller interchange also touches upon whether a contemporary literary critical work could become canonical, and how a literary critical book could become canonical with the passing of time. Zhang tries to argue that the influence of Miller's book Fiction and Repetition “outweighs the other books” he has written. In this sense, to Zhang, “if a book is a classic, it won't be forgotten because of the passage of time.” This “test of time” is perhaps the very significance of Miller's book to contemporary Chinese literary criticism and why Zhang has spent much time reading this book time and again in an attempt to find something inspiring in his understanding of literary works. What is more interesting is that Zhang compares Miller's deviation from the deconstructive way of reading to Balzac who, “against his own class sympathies and political prejudices [...] saw the necessity of the downfall of his favorite nobles.” Zhang questions whether or not from a critical point of view ignoring issues of classes or political tendencies, Miller's deviation from deconstruction is similar to Balzac's turning against his own aristocratic preconceptions. Miller replies that literary theories tend to express themselves as universally applicable formulations. Deconstruction is no exception. He further defends his argument by claiming that each literary work is unique. To a considerable degree a literary work's escape from theoretical recuperation results from the ways a poem or a novel is not like a mathematical equation to be solved or a philosophical argument to be judged true or false. As for literary theory and practical reading, Miller points out, that theory and reading are incompatible. “Your actual reading of literary works, I hold, and then making that reading part of your daily life, matter more than any theory about literature. Theory is ancillary to reading.” To sum up, they start their interchange from the reading of a literary work, and after some theoretical elaboration, they return to the understanding and interpreting of literary works.Readers might well raise these questions: What is the significance of Zhang and Miller's dialogue in such an age of globalization when literature and literary studies are not so attractive? Why does a book published in the 1980s in the English-speaking world still attract a Chinese theorist who raises some questions out of his repeated readings of it? My answers are brief, but may well help our Western readers understand a bit about the current Chinese literary situation: when literature and literary theory are on the decline in the West, they still have a considerable number of readers and scholars in China, although they are no longer so popular among them as ten years ago. While literary studies are challenged by cultural studies, some Chinese literary scholars are still interested in reading literary works, starting from which they explore some theoretical issues. In view of all the aforementioned points, I would like to introduce this interchange to our Western readers

Art · China · Epistemology · Literary criticism · Literary theory · Literature · Originality · Pessimism · Social science · Sociology · Anthropology · Chinese history and philosophy · Cultural Studies · History · Philosophy

• The Ends of Theory

  W J T Mitchell, William J Mitchell et al.•Critical Inquiry•2005

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