1. The Human-Animal Hybrid and the Anti-Modernity Narrative in Contemporary Chinese Animal Fictions.
- Author
-
XIE CHAO
- Subjects
HUMAN-animal relationships ,CHINESE literature ,LITERARY theory ,PHILOSOPHICAL literature ,CHINESE philosophy ,FICTION genres ,ENVIRONMENTAL ethics ,CONFUCIANISM - Abstract
The human-animal hybrid, or the transformation between humans and animals, has a long root in Chinese culture, and has recurred throughout Chinese literature. As a burgeoning genre in current China, contemporary Chinese animal fictions have increasingly featured the human-animal hybrid to disclose environmental degradations and the interdependence between humans and nonhuman animals. This article aims at investigating the human-animal hybrid represented in contemporary Chinese animal fictions in the context of the anti-modernity narrative and realistic ecological crises in China. Through referencing ancient Chinese philosophy and literature that are related to the human-animal hybrid, this article takes Ye Guangqin's »The Snake Erchan« and Jia Pingwa's Remembering Wolves as two case studies to argue that contemporary Chinese animal fiction writers employ the mythical human-animal hybrid as both a reminder of the inseparability between humans and animals, and a warning to critique detrimental effects brought by the idea of modernity. The traditional holistic and non-binary Chinese belief towards the human-animal relationship embedded in these animal fictions opens up an intercultural thinking about modernity as such. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2021