Author：Tongxin Cheng

Abstract: Afrofuturist conceptions of heroism depart from traditional heroic paradigms centered on world-saving missions and self-sacrifice, instead foregrounding how Black subjects persist and survive under conditions of structural racial oppression. In The Nickel Boys, Colson Whitehead articulates this survival-oriented model of heroism by juxtaposing the life trajectories of two Black adolescents, Elwood and Turner. Elwood remains committed to moral idealism and nonviolent resistance, yet ultimately meets his death at the hands of institutionalized violence. Turner, by contrast, survives through silence, endurance, and strategic withdrawal. The stark contrast between their fates calls into question the...

Column：Literature Studies   115-124   Details

Author：Tingting Chen

Abstract: The figure of "Andréide" in the late-19th century French science fiction novel L'Ève future represents a pivotal moment in the conceptual genealogy of the "Mechanical Beauty," profoundly shaping subsequent narratives of Human-Android romance in science-fiction literature and media. Tracing the conceptual evolution of the "Mechanical Beauty" from its early origins to contemporary interpretations reveals that the philosophical connotations embedded in the "Andréide" have been partially misinterpreted during its reception. This has led to the reconstitution of the "Mechanical Beauty" in recent works into three dominant types: the "perfect lover," the "emotional laborer," and the "reified object," each deviating from its original conceptual design....

Column：Cultural Studies   125-135   Details

Author：Xue Yu

Abstract: Oscar Wilde’s Oxford Notebooks, including Commonplace Book and Historical Criticism Notebook, serve as crucial paratextual materials that provide essential evidence for tracing the formation of his thought. These notebooks reveal Wilde’s particular engagement with Plato’s theory of Methexis of Beauty in the Symposium, as well as Aristotle’s discussion in Nicomachean Ethics concerning the “Megalopsychia,” which asserts that aesthetic judgment should remain autonomous from utilitarian considerations. These notes demonstrate a significant genealogical connection with his doctrine of Aestheticism. This investigation, by adopting the theoretical framework of Classical Reception Studies ...

Column：Cultural Studies   136-146   Details

Author：Xiaodong Guo

Abstract: Alenka Zupančič is a distinguished contemporary Lacanian philosopher and Nietzsche scholar. According to Zupančič, under the influence of two “nihilisms,” Nietzsche’s assertion of “the Death of God” connotates twofold meanings: the eclipse of value integrated into “one” and then, the existence of two Gods: the Symbolic God as law and the Real God as exception. Two Gods function in the same way as Lacan’s “Master Discourse,” that is, the symbolic order is reintegrated through the change of the master signifier, and some unknowable law of the Real emerges simultaneously and secretly in the form of a symptom. Through the psychoanalytic deconstruction and reconstruction of the cognitive connotation, logical motivation and framework operation of Nietzsche’s “Death of God,” Zupančič completes the articulation between Lacan and Nietzsche at the cultural level.

Column：Cultural Studies   147-156   Details