scholarly journals From Scientism to Humanism - the Influence of Modern Western Cultural and Ideological Thoughts on Lu Xun

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (5) ◽  
pp. 41-53
Author(s):  
Wei Chenlin
Keyword(s):  
Western Culture ◽  
Lu Xun ◽  
The West ◽  
Teaching Literature ◽  
The Past ◽  
May Fourth ◽  
Cultural Choice ◽  
Scientific Achievements

Lu Xun’s shift from “saving the nation through science” to “saving the nation through literature” was an important watershed in modern China’s process of learning from the West, as well as in Lu Xun’s personal transition from Scientism to Humanism. As interpenetrating and intertwining aspects of modern Western culture, Scientism and Humanism are at the same time mutually different and mutually interrelated. In the past, most researchers have focused on the differences between these two cultural thoughts and neglected their connections. But actually, precisely because they are connected and interrelated to each other, Lu Xun actively kept up with the latest philosophical and cultural trends in the West at the same time he was introducing the scientific achievements of the West; this is also why Lu Xun first taught science after returning to China, then switched to teaching literature after the May Fourth Movement.He also urged people who were engaged in literature to also read scientific books. Only by realizing the differences between the two and paying attention to their connections can we better understand Lu Xun's cultural choice between Scientism and Humanism.

Lu Xun on Our Minds: The Post-Socialist Reappraisal; Chou, Memory, Violence, Queues: Lu Xun Interprets China; Davies, Lu Xun's Revolution: Writing in a Time of Violence; Cheng, Literary Remains: Death, Trauma, and Lu Xun's Refusal to Mourn

2014 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
pp. 581-587
Author(s):  
Jon Eugene von Kowallis
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Chinese Literature ◽  
The United States ◽  
Modern Chinese Literature ◽  
Lu Xun ◽  
The West ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
The Past ◽  
Short Time ◽  
American Academic

That American academic publishers within a short time have put out three monographs this substantial on Lu Xun (1881–1936), often referred to as the founder of modern Chinese literature, is indicative of a new enthusiasm for Lu Xun in the United States and elsewhere in the West. In Japan, South Korea, and of course the People's Republic of China, the study of Lu Xun has been an academic enterprise of considerable standing for some time already. Not that American scholars have failed to make substantial contributions to Lu Xun studies in the past, but such contributions have been relatively far between. Fortunately, there is little overlap between these three exciting new studies.

scholarly journals Old Dreams Retold

Prism ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-243
Author(s):  
Ban Wang
Keyword(s):  
Walter Benjamin ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
Lu Xun ◽  
Chinese Tradition ◽  
The Past ◽  
Technological Rationality ◽  
May Fourth

Abstract As a champion of May Fourth enlightenment and a critic of Chinese tradition, Lu Xun is less understood as a prescient critic of the myth of science and technological rationality. Walter Benjamin invoked the utopian reconciliation of humans and nature from premodern culture in critiques of modernity. Similarly, Lu Xun conjured up images of the ancient world where rural folks lived in reciprocity with nature, worshiped supernatural beings, and observed time-honored rituals. Lu Xun linked the myth of progress and technology to a destructive chorus of “malevolent voices” by a hypocritical gentry, a technocratic elite that sought power, status, and profit in the name of enlightenment and rationality. He proclaimed that it is urgent to “rid of ourselves of this hypocrite gentry; ‘superstition’ may remain.” Invoking Benjamin's insight and affinity with Lu Xun, this article explores the Chinese writer's recovery of the mythical and ecological images from the past in the critique of modernity. Confronted with the fetishism of progress and technology in China's early modernization, Lu Xun sought to uncover and redeem primordial images from archaic traditions.

Managing rivers for conservation and ecotourism in the Kruger National Park

1995 ◽  
Vol 32 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 227-233 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. J. Venter ◽  
A. R. Deacon
Keyword(s):  
National Park ◽  
Good Condition ◽  
Kruger National Park ◽  
Rapid Expansion ◽  
Natural Environments ◽  
The West ◽  
The Past ◽  
Management Actions ◽  
Flow Through ◽  
Three Rivers

Six major rivers flow through the Kruger National Park (KNP). All these rivers originate outside and to the west of the KNP and are highly utilized. They are crucially important for the conservation of the unique natural environments of the KNP. The human population growth in the Lowveld during the past two decades brought with it the rapid expansion of irrigation farming, exotic afforestation and land grazed by domestic stock, as well as the establishment of large towns, mines, dams and industries. Along with these developments came overgrazing, erosion, over-utilization and pollution of rivers, as well as clearing of indigenous forests from large areas outside the borders of the KNP. Over-utilization of the rivers which ultimately flow through the KNP poses one of the most serious challenges to the KNP's management. This paper gives the background to the development in the catchments and highlights the problems which these have caused for the KNP. Management actions which have been taken as well as their results are discussed and solutions to certain problems proposed. Three rivers, namely the Letaba, Olifants and Sabie are respectively described as examples of an over-utilized river, a polluted river and a river which is still in a fairly good condition.

Sleep in western culture

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Ekirch
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Sleep Deprivation ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Sleep Onset ◽  
Western Culture ◽  
The Past ◽  
Predominant Form ◽  
Artificial Illumination ◽  
Illness Anxiety

Although a universal necessity, sleep, as the past powerfully indicates, is not a biological constant. Before the Industrial Revolution, sleep in western households differed in a variety of respects from that of today. Arising chiefly from a dearth of artificial illumination, the predominant form of sleep was segmented, consisting of two intervals of roughly 3 hours apiece bridged by up to an hour or so of wakefulness. Notwithstanding steps taken by families to preserve the tranquillity of their slumber, the quality of pre-industrial sleep was poor, owing to illness, anxiety, and environmental vexations. Large portions of the labouring population almost certainly suffered from sleep deprivation. Despite the prevalence of sleep-onset insomnia, awakening in the middle of the night was thought normal. Not until the turn of the nineteenth century and sleep’s consolidation did physicians view segmented sleep as a disorder requiring medication.

The New Islamic State

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Farhad Khosrokhavar
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Imagined Community ◽  
The West ◽  
Patriarchal Family ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
The Creation

The creation of the Islamic State in Iraq and Sham (ISIS) changed the nature of jihadism worldwide. For a few years (2014–2017) it exemplified the destructive capacity of jihadism and created a new utopia aimed at restoring the past greatness and glory of the former caliphate. It also attracted tens of thousands of young wannabe combatants of faith (mujahids, those who make jihad) toward Syria and Iraq from more than 100 countries. Its utopia was dual: not only re-creating the caliphate that would spread Islam all over the world but also creating a cohesive, imagined community (the neo-umma) that would restore patriarchal family and put an end to the crisis of modern society through an inflexible interpretation of shari‘a (Islamic laws and commandments). To achieve these goals, ISIS diversified its approach. It focused, in the West, on the rancor of the Muslim migrants’ sons and daughters, on exoticism, and on an imaginary dream world and, in the Middle East, on tribes and the Sunni/Shi‘a divide, particularly in the Iraqi and Syrian societies.

Anti-Catholicism in Germany, Britain, and the United States: A Review and Critique of Recent Scholarship

2001 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
pp. 98-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marjule Anne Drury
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Change ◽  
The United States ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
Religious Culture ◽  
The West ◽  
The Past ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Race Ethnicity ◽  
Irish Question ◽  
Political Economic

The past two decades have seen an efflorescence of works exploring cultural anti-Catholicism in a variety of national contexts. But so far, historians have engaged in little comparative analysis. This article is a first step, examining recent historical literature on modern British and American anti-Catholicism, in order to trace the similarities and distinctiveness of the turn-of-the-century German case. Historians are most likely to be acquainted with American nativism, the German Kulturkampf, continental anticlericalism, and the problems of Catholic Emancipation and the Irish Question in Britain. Many of the themes and functions of anti-Catholic discourse in the West transcended national and temporal boundaries. In each case, the conceptualization of a Catholic ‘other’ is a testament to the tenacity of confessionalism in an age formerly characterized as one of inexorable secularization. Contemporary observers often agreed that religious culture—like history, race, ethnicity, geography, and local custom—played a role in the self-evident distinctiveness of peoples and nations, in their political forms, economic performance, and intellectual and artistic contributions. We will see how confessionalism remained a lens through which intellectuals and ordinary citizens, whether attached or estranged from religious commitments, viewed political, economic, and cultural change.

The Problem of Energy

2014 ◽  
Vol 31 (5) ◽  
pp. 3-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Urry
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Fossil Fuel ◽  
Energy Systems ◽  
Social Thought ◽  
Human Intervention ◽  
The West ◽  
The Past ◽  
And Control ◽  
Global Growth

Energy forms and their extensive scale are remarkably significant for the ways that societies are organized. This article shows the importance of how societies are ‘energized’ and especially the global growth of ‘fossil fuel societies’. Much social thought remains oblivious to the energy revolution realized over the past two to three centuries which set the ‘West’ onto a distinct trajectory. Energy is troubling for social thought because different energy systems with their ‘lock-ins’ are not subject to simple human intervention and control. Analyses are provided here of different fossil fuel societies, of coal and oil, with the latter enabling the liquid, mobilized 20th century. Consideration is paid to the possibilities of reducing fossil fuel dependence but it is shown how unlikely such a ‘powering down’ will be. The author demonstrates how energy is a massive problem for social theory and for 21st-century societies. Developing post-carbon theory and especially practice is far away but is especially urgent.

For Science and Country: History Writing, Nation Building, and National Embeddedness in Third Republic France, 1870–1914

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Guillaume Lancereau
Keyword(s):  
Nation Building ◽  
Third Republic ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
History Writing ◽  
The West ◽  
Academic Competition ◽  
The Past ◽  
Methodological Nationalism ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Territorial Claims

This article examines late nineteenth and early twentieth-century historiographical practices and convictions in Third Republic France. It shifts the focus from the question of whether French academic historians were nationalists to the issue of how they were nationalists. If republican academic historians took a critical stance on nationalist distortions of the past, they nevertheless associated the teaching of history with patriotism and opposed historiographical “pan-Germanism” in ways favorable to French cultural and territorial claims. Meanwhile, the growing internationalization of the field stimulated scholarly competition across the West and spurred reflections about nationals’ epistemological privilege over national histories, methodological nationalism, and the invention of national historiographical traditions. Uncovering the anxieties of continual debate with foreign historians and the nationalist right wing, this article offers a prehistory of present-day dilemmas over global, national, and nationalist histories in an international field characterized by structural inequalities and academic competition.

Islamic International Relations Towards a Theoretical Framework

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gubara Hassan
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
The West ◽  
The Past ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
The World

The Western originators of the multi-disciplinary social sciences and their successors, including most major Western social intellectuals, excluded religion as an explanation for the world and its affairs. They held that religion had no role to play in modern society or in rational elucidations for the way world politics or/and relations work. Expectedly, they also focused most of their studies on the West, where religion’s effect was least apparent and argued that its influence in the non-West was a primitive residue that would vanish with its modernization, the Muslim world in particular. Paradoxically, modernity has caused a resurgence or a revival of religion, including Islam. As an alternative approach to this Western-centric stance and while focusing on Islam, the paper argues that religion is not a thing of the past and that Islam has its visions of international relations between Muslim and non-Muslim states or abodes: peace, war, truce or treaty, and preaching (da’wah).

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