Volume 10, No. 2

As a pioneer in translating and introducing Western detective fiction during the late Qing dynasty, Zhou Guisheng was among the first to advocate the ethical value of Western detective fiction. He treated Western detective fiction as a textual sample embodying modern Western judicial ethics. He further clarified the truth-seeking spirit and scientific methodology as the primary ethical choices in detectives’ crime investigation, which subverted the trial model and traditional judicial ethics embodied in Chinese classical gong’an fiction. By emphasizing the crucial role Western detectives played in protecting human rights and civil rights, Zhou put forward detectives’ innovative ethical identity and ethical claims as a means of reforming the social and ethical order in late Qing. In his short story Shanghai Detective Case, Zhou for the first time created the image of a Chinese local detective, “Bao Tan.” As a relatively independent subject of crime investigation, Bao Tan’s ethical identity embodies both progressive and limited dimensions. Nevertheless, the investigator figure and ethical choices represented by Bao Tan, grounded in the framework of a modern judicial system, opened up new narrative possibilities and ethical foundations for the creation of subsequent local detective fiction.

While mainstream science fiction (SF) often prioritizes techno-scientific speculation, ghost stories have long been marginalized as a subgenre confined to superstition and the grotesque. This study argues that contemporary East Asian SF writers, such as Korean writer Bora Chung in Midnight Timetable, reclaim the ethical significance of ghost stories as a distinctive literary genre. Specifically, this paper contends that Chung reconceives East Asian ghost stories not merely as a trope of vengeance but as a framework for ethical healing that challenges the dehumanizing logic of capitalist rationality and the structural oppression it generates. By using the East Asian philosophical imagination, Chung constructs an alternative fictional world that integrates rational thoughts with ethical reflection, presenting this integration as a path towards healing amid contemporary predicaments.

From the perspective of poem-painting intertextuality, this paper sorts out Michelangelo’s ethical evolution: from ethical enlightenment, confronting ethical predicaments and making ethical choices, to ultimately undertaking social responsibilities. Michelangelo’s poems embody inner spirit through noble aspirations, while his paintings interpret moral righteousness via sublime aesthetics. He created The Sistine Chapel Ceiling to express the ‘Sphinx factor’ in character, hoping to establish a Renaissance humanistic ethical system. The ethical value and influence of his poetry and paintings contributed to the rise of the European middle class. His painting Last Judgement promotes humanistic innovative ideas and the ethics of humanism. His integrated multiple ethical identities reflected in poetic and visual creations mirror the shift from medieval European moral and cultural notions to modern humanist ethical thoughts. He embodies the multifaceted ethical identities of a poet, painter, sculptor, and thinker but his poetry is the soul of his artistic creation. This paper aims to explore Michelangelo’s multiple ethical identities and the humanist ethical philosophy that emerged through the fusion of his poetry and paintings.

As an important ornament of traditional architecture in the Cantonese region of Lingnan, lime sculpture is not only a carrier of regional aesthetics and folk beliefs, but also a visual apparatus of materialized ethics. Moving beyond the functional interpretation of auspicious symbolism, this paper introduces cultural studies theories and constructs the three-tier analytical framework of representation-discourse-subject. Starting from figure, flower-and-bird, and landscape motifs, it explores the internal logic of lime sculpture’s involvement in ethical construction. The study finds that lime sculpture visualizes the ethical norms of moral enlightenment, secular life ethics, and human-land ethics by using symbols, composition, and color as representational codes. Relying on the deployment of highly visible spatial discourse, ethical norms are naturalized and legitimized in daily viewing. Ultimately, through mirror identification and interpellative structure, it produces ethical subjects endowed with clan responsibility, secular aspirations, and homeland sentiment. Thus, lime sculpture becomes a key medium for ethical expression, providing a material-cultural approach to understanding the ethical functions of traditional architectural ornamentation and answering the interdisciplinary inquiry into how ethics can be made visible.

This paper presents an analysis of Nanguo Qingtian, the first full-length novel in contemporary Dai literature. Authored by Fang Yunqin and Zheng Peng, the novel occupies a unique position in both Dai cultural expression and broader Chinese literary history. This study examines how Nanguo Qingtian navigates the complex interplay between traditional Dai cultural elements and modern literary techniques, often reflecting narratives of progress and national identity shaped by dominant cultural and historical frameworks. This paper argues for the novel’s enduring significance beyond its pioneering status. It re-evaluates existing critical perspectives, positioning Nanguo Qingtian as a vital contribution to understanding the development of ethnic minority literature within China’s evolving literary landscape of the late 1980s.

My interdisciplinary research began with literature and cultural studies, examining the characteristics of Chinese and Western literature through a comparative reflection on their cultural similarities and differences, resulting in several monographs and a number of innovative perspectives. I subsequently developed a keen interest in the intersections of literature with religion and philosophy, publishing monographs that present unique perspectives in these areas and contribute distinctive insights to ongoing scholarly debates. I then extended my interdisciplinary research to explore literature’s relationship with all other human expression domains, including various arts such as music, painting, theater, and film; humanities disciplines like philosophy, history, ethics, psychology, mythology, and anthropology; social sciences such as sociology, statistics, politics, economics, and law; and interdisciplinary studies involving literature and science, technology, ecology, the environment, geography, and religion. This research has yielded both monographs and interdisciplinary contributions to the Marxist Theory Research and Construction Project (commonly known as Ma Gongcheng) Introduction to Comparative Literature, as well as papers specifically addressing the Chinese resources of literary ethics.

A Study of Contemporary Western Unnatural Narratology, authored primarily by Shang Biwu, represents a significant contribution to the frontier studies of postclassical narratology by constructing a systematic theoretical framework for unnatural narratology. Employing the core concept of “unnatural element,” the book integrates Richardson’s “anti-mimetic” theory with Alber’s “impossibility” theory to clarify the definition and criteria of unnatural narratives at both the local and global levels, forming a complete theoretical chain from conceptual definition and characteristic analysis to interpretive strategies and disciplinary dialogue. Methodologically, the book combines cognitive narratology, rhetorical narratology, and postcolonial theory to establish an interdisciplinary research paradigm that is both scientific and humanistic, while extending the object of study from postmodern fiction to diverse genres and media such as drama, poetry, picturebooks, and AI narratives. By directly addressing core controversies and thoroughly exploring the contemporary issue of artificial intelligence narrative, this work not only realizes a paradigm innovation in narrative theory but also provides new analytical tools and an academic model for literary criticism.

Ethical Literary Criticism constitutes an innovative, scientific, and systematic critical theory and methodology aimed at revitalizing the ethical tradition in Chinese and Western literary criticism and constructing a discourse of literary criticism with Chinese characteristics. Employing the unique perspective of Ethical Literary Criticism to conduct a diachronic study of British drama allows for a renewed examination of its ethical tradition, the ethical motivations behind its creation, and the trajectory of its evolution. Professor Liu Maosheng’s A Study on Ethical Narrative of British Drama stands as the first academic monograph in China to undertake such an endeavor. It offers a comprehensive interpretation of classic British dramas, from medieval religious plays to contemporary absurdist theatre, revealing the intrinsic patterns of their ethical narratives and demonstrating that an ethical tradition consistently permeates the development of British drama. The book highlights the capacity of Ethical Literary Criticism to integrate interdisciplinary approaches, merge aesthetics with ethics, uncover historical contexts, and consider contemporary values of literature. It demonstrates the academic significance of this critical approach in breaking the monopoly of Western discourse, constructing a Chinese critical paradigm, and exploring the ethical connotations of literature.