Abstract

abstract:

After the decline of literary and cultural theory in the West, it has witnessed the coming of a post-theoretic era in which there is no such thing as a dominant theory as it used to be. The same is true of China where theory, especially that from the West, was extremely popular among Chinese literary and cultural theorists. But contrary to the situation in the West, some Western theories are still attractive to Chinese literary and cultural theorists, such as gender theory. In this article, the author argues that when theory travels to other places, its function and significance would change more or less, and sometimes, a different phenomenon would appear, which manifests itself in the continuous popularity and flourishing of theory in China in the past decades. Even in such a post-theoretical era, various theoretical and cultural trends still function in a limited sphere. But Western theory could function effectively in China only when it is contextualized. That is, it should be relocated in the Chinese context. This has been particularly proved by the popularity of gender theory, especially that of Judith Butler, and gender studies in present day China.

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