Title: On Liu Mingjiu’s French Literature Criticism

Abstract: As an eminent scholar and critic of China’s foreign literature studies in the contemporary era, Liu Mingjiu has a wide reputation and influence in China’s literary, critical, and academic circles. He has in a long academic and critical career worked very hard and achieved a great deal in the study of French literary history as well as criticism and other relevant fields. His influence has reached far beyond China’s foreign literature studies. His major critical and academic achievements can be summarised as follows: Firstly, he took the initiative to introduce Jean-Paul Sartre to China immediately after the country’s opening up and reform, enabling scholars to reconsider modern Western literature. Secondly, he took the lead in compiling the History of French Literature which represents the highest level of China’s French literature studies. Thirdly, he, as a literary critic confronting social reality with a strong critical consciousness, has a striking human concern, representing to a certain extent the conscience of contemporary China’s humanities intellectuals. In short, Liu is a critic in contemporary China’s foreign literature studies and criticism that we cannot get around.

Keywords: Mingjiu Liu, French literature, literary criticism, Sartre studies, humanistic concern

Author: Ning Wang, Distinguished Chair Professor of the University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; Distinguished University Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China.