Chinese Journal of Literary Criticism

No.3, 2020

Forty Years of the Chinese Reception of Western Postmodernism: The Process and Its Problems

(Abstract)

Zeng Jun

Since 1980, the reception of postmodernism in China has lasted for 40 years in the form of “quasi-synchronization”. The initial channel for China to accept postmodernism comes from the United States. American postmodernism, represented by Ihab Hassan’s “postmodern poetics” and Fredric Jameson’s “cultural logic of late capitalism”, became China’s first impression of Western postmodernism. The 1990s saw the popularity of French postmodernism, including Jean-Franois Lyotard and other “French theories”, which soon became the most influential form of “post-modernism” in contemporary Chinese literary theory. Postmodern discourse also entered the field of contemporary Chinese literary criticism. This not only caused a huge surge of postmodern discourse in contemporary literary criticism, but also constantly strengthened the Chinese scholars’ consciousness of their cultural identity, a reflection of the dialectics of “Chinese postmodernism”.