The Theory Construction and International Communication of Ethical Literary Criticism

The School of Foreign Studies (the SFS) held the ceremony of professor Nie Zhenzhao’s appointment as the visiting professor and organized the lecture titled Theory Construction and International Communication of Ethical Literary Criticism on the afternoon of November 22nd 2019, in 315 Academic Hall. Prof. Nie Zhenzhao from the School of International Studies, Zhejiang University and Prof. Chen Hongwei, dean of the SFS of University of Science and Technology Beijing (USTB) attended the event. Deputy Dean Fan Yiting hosted the ceremony and introduced Prof. Nie Zhenzhao to all teachers, doctoral and graduate students. Mr. Nie Zhenzhao is currently professor of Literature at Zhejiang University, where he is affiliated with the School of International Studies. He is an elected foreign member of the Academia Europaea (Academy of Europe), editor-in-chief of Interdisciplinary Studies of Literature (A&HCI-indexed) and executive editor-in-chief of Forum for World Literature Studies. He serves as director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Literary Studies at Zhejiang University, and vice president of such organizations as China National Foreign Literature Association, the International Association for Ethical Literary Criticism (IAELC), Chinese/American Association for Poetry and Poetics (CAAP). Professor Nie once received the special stipend from the State Council in 1993 and now he is sitting on the experts’ panel of the National Social Sciences Foundation (NSSF). He has been honored with the Outstanding Achievement Award for Scientific Research in Colleges and Universities (Humanities and Social Sciences) by Ministry of Education for 3 times. His monographs: A Mournful and Resolute Artist: A Study of Thomas Hardy’s Novels and An Introduction to English Verse Rhythm won the second prize of the 1st and the 5th Outstanding Achievement Award respectively and his paper Ethical Literary Criticism: Basic Theories and Terms won the third prize of the 6th Outstanding Achievement Award. His monograph An Introduction to Literary Ethics Criticism was included in Selected Works of the China National Fund for Social Sciences and awarded the first prize of the 10th Hubei Excellent Achievements in Social Science. His English paper Towards an Ethical Literary Criticism was awarded the 19th Outstanding Achievement Award in Philosophy and Social Sciences of Zhejiang Province. He was honored as the father of ethical literary criticism by Claude Rawson, chair professor of Yale University, academician of American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS), editor-in-chief of TheCambridge History of Literary Criticism.

Then, Prof. Chen Hongwei, on behalf of the SFS, conferred the letter of appointment on professor Nie and student representatives presented flowers to him. After the ceremony, professor Nie started to lecture on the theory construction and international communication of ethical literary criticism. He first explained what was theory. Generally, theory has two elements: systematic concepts and terms and so does the Ethical literary criticism, the three stages of human civilization: natural selection, ethical selection, and scientific selection. Natural selection determines the form of human body, ethical selection explains the human nature and scientific selection will combine humans and science. Humans are different from apes in biological features after long-term evolution but their real difference lies in humanity realized by ethical choices. Evolution is the method of natural selection while teaching and learning the method of ethical selection. Prof. Nie questioned the prevailing education philosophy that children should grow freely and behave by instinct. He took an example from The Jungle Book written by Rudyard Kipling. After raising to 9 by a wolf, human child Mowgli behaved more and more like an animal despite his human body.

In his opinion, ethical selection is a long process, throughout the whole life of humans and there are 2 types of choices: active choices and passive choices. How can humans make right choices? They need a tool, literature. Choices all can be found in literature, no matter behavioral, emotional, or spiritual. Ethical literary criticism is a theory to teach people how to read literature in a right way and how to make ethical choices. Prof. Nie interpreted 2 works from the perspective of ethical literary criticism: Journey to the West and The Necklace. Monkey King in Journal to the West was often praised for his pursuit of freedom and courage of rebellion while Prof. Nie viewed him as a warning, rather than an example. People often misunderstand freedom. The premise of liberty is illiberality embodying human’s moralization so liberty can only be pursued within limitations. Rescued by Tang Sanzang from the Five-Element Mountains, Monkey King began to make life choices because as a monkey he could do anything by instinct while as a human he was bound with chains. Mathilde, the female character in The Necklace, a masterpiece of Maupassant, was rated as a vain and shallow woman by high school teachers, which was completely different from Prof. Nie who regarded Mathilde as a refined and responsible lady. Mathilde, whose husband was a civil servant, felt honored to be invited by the education minister so she should be well-dressed for the ball. But she was regretful for lacking a necklace after buying a formal dress with her own money since in the west, women should wear necklace when wearing a formal dress to a ball. From her knowledge of social etiquettes, she could be considered as a refined woman. Mathilde paid back her friend’s necklace with ten year’s hard work but she only felt satisfied and relieved, instead of regretful and disappointed when she knew the lost necklace was a fake. Fulfilling her moral responsibilities, she was an example of virtue. The goal of ethical selection is to achieve high moralization, to remove people’s sense of morality by turning people to sages, which presupposes scientific selection. After ethical selection, human civilization is going through or will go through the stage of scientific selection. With high moralization, the power of ethics and morals will become less and less, while the limitations of technologies like clone will be fewer and fewer. Humans will change essentially in the scientific selection stage. Owing to the rapid development of clone technology and AI, humans will be made by science. Since clone has already been used to treat diseases, science-made humans are bound to appear. In the scientific selection stage, there are no ethical standards, only the standards of science and technology will be discussed. Scientific selection emphasizes three aspects: how to develop and use science, how to deal with the impacts of science on people and the subsequent consequences, and how to understand and cope with the relationship between humans and science.

After illustrating the framework of ethical literary criticism, Prof. Nie introduced its creation and international communication process to the audience. He first quoted President Xi Jinping to show the urgency of overseas promotion of Chinese academics “We are best positioned to interpret Chinese practice and construct Chinese theories, but the Chinese philosophy and social sciences are not influential enough in the international communities, stuck in an embarrassed situation that reasons can’t be explained clearly nor be spread widely.” The main databases and the concepts and terms used in China were all from the west. At the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century, literary studies in China were in the shadow of western studies, so Prof. Nie and other scholars began to consider the construction of literary criticism theory in 2004.