Chinese Journal of Literary Criticism

No.2, 2025 

Materials, Sense of History and Reprocessing—A Dialogue on Contemporary History of Literature

(Abstract)

Cheng Guangwei and Zhao Tiancheng

One of the general trends in the study of contemporary Chinese literature in recent years has been a shift from theoretical criticism, which is “theory with history,” to material-based research. This dialogue combines the researchers’ senses of history, research experience, and the history and current state of the discipline to present a series of views in a question and answer session on the scope and character of materials in contemporary literature, the relationship between issues and materials, the complexities of historical sensibility, the entanglement of the researcher and the object of study, and the methods and perspectives of dealing with the materials as well as a critique of relevant studies in contemporary literature.