Introduction

Abstract

This special issue of the Journal of Chinese Literature and Culture has brought an exceptionally accomplished group of scholars together to reflect on the impact of theoretical and methodological trends on our field. Surveying the past achievements, current state, and future prospects of the study of premodern Chinese literature from broadly cosmopolitan theoretical and comparative perspectives, these scholars address, inter alia, the following questions: What place do works written in aWestern language and/or from perspectives informed substantially by non-Chinese scholarship occupywithin the full ambit of Chinese literary studies? If scholarship written in English or other Western languages is for the most part pitched primarily to non-Chinese audiences, what are its strengths and weaknesses for native-speaking readers? And, how has theoretically informed work complemented and drawn upon the rapidly expanding body of Chineseand other East Asian–language research in these fields? Finally, what is the current state of the dialogue between scholarship on Chinese literature— whether in Western languages or not—and that of other literatures? Has it resulted in any significant impacts on the latter, or on the literary field as awhole? Each of the nine articles in this issue takes a slightly different tack in treating their respective genres, fields, or texts. While the first four engage primarily in retrospective surveys of previous scholarship, the remaining five introduce and apply relatively novel conceptual and interpretive models to Chinese examples. Although this division is far from absolute—all of the articles engage to some degree in both of these exercises—we have organized the chapters into two sections to reflect their relative differences in emphasis. In aggregate, all nine authors both argue for and demonstrate the value of the