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The Aesthetics of Information in Modern Chinese Literary Culture, 1919-1949 Anatoly Detwyler Submitted in Partial Fulfillment O The Aesthetics of Information in Modern Chinese Literary Culture, 1919-1949 Anatoly Detwyler Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2015 © 2015 Anatoly Detwyler All rights reserved ABSTRACT The Aesthetics of Information in Modern Chinese Literary Culture, 1919-1949 Anatoly Detwyler This dissertation examines the literary and cultural history of information in modern China from 1919 to 1949. This era witnessed a communications revolution, marked by the rapid proliferation of new ways of transmitting and inscribing information, which joined other revolutions (sociopolitical, linguistic) in ushering in the modern subject. In the form of xiaoxi, xinxi, or tongji, “information” became an essential entity by which to understand and implement modern practices of the communications revolution cropping up throughout China—from statistical knowledge to political propaganda, from stock speculation to new virtual communities. This dissertation uses four case studies to revisit familiar writers such as Mao Dun (1896-1981), Ding Ling (1904-1986), and Shen Congwen (1902-1988), while also excavating a number of innovative figures such as the avant-garde psychologist, Zhang Yaoxiang (1893-1964), and the communications critic, Xie Liuyi (1898-1945), to show how the rise of an early information era interacted with and spurred the emergence of modern literary culture, as writers, critics, and artists collectively developed new modes of representating and analyzing information. New fiction did not simply passively reflect the spread of information into everyday life or changes in China’s information order. Rather, as writers and critics actively integrated forms of information into their work, even envisioning literature itself as a kind of medium of information, they contributed to what I call an emergent “aesthetics of information.” Why did forms like the database or the encyclopedia inspire new modes of literary composition? How could literary forms incorporate or critique forms of data organization such as account books or statistical tables? When did information provide new ways of constructing the real—and when did literary realism seem directly opposed to the abstractive and disembodying qualities of information? The aesthetics of information directly and creatively engaged with information in a variety of ways, sometimes by way of a process of absorption and appropriation, and at other times through a more oppositional logic of resistance in the form of critique, unmasking, or satire. Ultimately the lens of “information” sheds new light on the development of modern Chinese literature, while also contributing a crucial piece to the broader mosaic of modern information’s global history. This dissertation thereby historicizes the early 20th century foundations of many of the hallmarks of postindustrial life and culture in China today: the spread of abstraction, the rise of white-collar information management, and the increasingly important role of network communications in modulating sociality and politics. TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures................................................................................................................................. ii Acknowledgments........................................................................................................................... v Introduction..................................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter One: Distant Reading as a Vernacular Modern: Tu, Biao, and the Aesthetics of Information in China’s New Culture Movement.......................................................................... 39 Chapter Two: Communication and Fictitious Capital in Mao Dun’s “Market Literature” ........ 107 Chapter Three: Ripple Effects: Visualizing the Propagation of Information in Leftist Literature and Art in the 1930s.................................................................................................................... 165 Chapter Four: Narrating Networks: On Literary Craft and the Social Life of Information in the Work of Shen Congwen.............................................................................................................. 244 Coda: From Then Until Now: H. Informaticus and the Aesthetics of Information.................... 305 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................... 315 Appendix: Translations............................................................................................................... 339 i LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Xiaoxi as portrayed in the newspaper, Shenbao (1907) ................................................ 37 Figure 2: “Well-Informed” (1911)................................................................................................ 38 Figure 3: Sample page from Gu Donggao’s Tableaux of Events in the Spring and Autumn Period (1748)............................................................................................................................................ 96 Figure 4: Liang Qichao and Ding Wenjiang, “Table of the Geographical Distribution of Historical Figures” (1922) ............................................................................................................ 97 Figure 5: Wei Juxian, graph of textual attention in the Zuozhuan (1929) .................................... 98 Figure 6: Wei Juxian, graph of ratios of textual distribution in the Zuozhuan and Chunqiu (1929) ....................................................................................................................................................... 98 Figure 7: Table from Chen Heqin’s “Character Repertoires for Language Learning” (1922)..... 99 Figure 8: Table from Cheng Junying’s “The Attention and Interests of Poets” (1923) ............. 100 Figure 9: Table from Zhang Yaoxiang’s “The Affect of New Poets” (1924) showing the average of exclamation points in modern Chinese poetry ....................................................................... 101 Figure 10: Table from Zhang Yaoxiang’s “The Affect of New Poets” (1924) tabulating exclamation point averages in Western poetry ........................................................................... 101 Figure 11: Zhang Yaoxiang’s rendition of Guo Moruo’s “Morning Peace” into data (1924) ... 102 Figure 12: Fu Donghua’s reproduction of Moulton’s chart of morphology of literary form (1926) ..................................................................................................................................................... 103 Figure 13: Yu Dafu, diagram of ‘F’ in daily experience (1925)................................................. 103 Figure 14: He Yubo, diagram of love relations between literary protagonist and secondary characters (1928)......................................................................................................................... 104 Figure 15: He Yubo, diagram of tripartite plot development in Mao Dun’s “Pursuit” (1928)... 104 Figure 16: He Yubo, temporal sequencing of “Her News” (1930)............................................. 104 Figure 17: He Yubo, structure of “thought” or ideology in “Escape” (1931) ............................ 105 Figure 18: He Yubo, analysis of structure of Mao Dun’s Waverings (1931)............................. 105 Figure 19: Wang Xipeng, diagram of narrative elements in Zhang Ziping’s “Taili” (1934) ..... 106 Figure 20: Photograph of Shanghai China Merchants Stock Exchange, Ltd. (date unknown) .. 162 Figure 21: Various kinds of network forms................................................................................ 162 Figure 22: Lu Zhixiang, illustration of the Shanghai Huashang Stock Exchange (1936) .......... 163 Figure 23: Lu Zhixiang, illustration of the Shanghai Huashang Stock Exchange (1936) .......... 163 ii Figure 24: Liu Xian, illustration of communication in Mao Dun’s Midnight (1936)................. 164 Figure 25: Cover image of Broadcast Weekly (1934) ................................................................ 226 Figure 26: Image of radio’s national reach in Broadcast Weekly (1934) ................................... 227 Figure 27: Hu Yichuan, “To the Front” (1932) .......................................................................... 227 Figure 28: Tang Yingwei, “Xiaoxi” (1935) ................................................................................ 228 Figure 29: Ge Yuan, “A Bit of News” (1948) ............................................................................ 229 Figure 30: Luo Qingzhen, “Labor Day” (1933).......................................................................... 230 Figure 31: Luo Qingzhen, “The Masses Rise Up” (1936).......................................................... 231 Figure 32: Zhang Hui, “Propaganda Lecture” (undated)............................................................ 232 Figure 33: Luo Qingzhen, “Returning Herd” (1935).................................................................. 233 Figure 34: Zhang Hui, “Glow of the Setting Sun in the Countryside” (1935) ........................... 233 Figure 35: Zhang Hui, “Dusk over the Forested Hills” (1935)................................................... 234 Figure 36: Luo Qingzhen, “Crashing Waves” (1937) ...............................................................
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