The CSSCI source journal Guizhou Social Sciences recently launched a special column on “Bie-Modern Research”

In the 7th issue of 2022, the CSSCI source journal Guizhou Social Sciences launched a special column on “Bie-Modern Research”, which published three papers: Contemporary Art in the Context of Bie-modern Theory by Professor Ernst Zenko of the University of Primorska in Slovenia, The Perspective of “Bie-modern”: Rethinking the Problem of “Modernity” by Professor Jian Shengyu of Yangzhou University School of Fine Arts and Design, and The Construction of the Inner Aesthetic Theory of Bie-modernism from a Multidimensional Perspective by Peng Zhe, a doctoral student at Shanghai Normal University School of Humanities. In this issue, Guizhou Social Sciences also has columns such as “Political and Philosophical Research”, “Historical Research”, “Educational Research”, “Oral History, Collective Memory and Special Topics on New China’s Industrial Construction”, “Economic Research”, and “Rural Revitalization Research”. The fact that the column on “Bie-modern research” is listed alongside these columns shows that Bie-modern has become a hot academic issue at home and abroad.

Contemporary Art in the Context of Bie-modern Theory discusses the significance and relevance of Bie-modern theory in Western geographical and cultural contexts. Wang Jianjiang’s Bie-modern theory is based on assumptions that are fundamentally different from Western theoretical methods and Chinese theoretical methods, thus proposing the interweaving of different time and space under the concept of “the Spatialization of Time”. However, this approach opens up thinking about a series of issues related to key theoretical concepts and assumptions that constitute the historical and social foundations of the West, with the most relevant being the issue of linear historical development. Through an analysis of two concepts: modernity (a broad concept describing society as a whole) and modernism (a narrow concept used to describe the development of art and literature), it seems that Western development has not followed a linear pattern. More importantly, contemporary art in a global sense, as interpreted by Terry Smith, largely contradicts this linear temporal logic. Therefore, this development indicates that Bie-modern theory not only covers social and artistic forms developed in Chinese contexts but can also be applied globally.

The Perspective of “Bie-modern”: Rethinking the Problem of “Modernity” discusses how contemporary academia’s understanding of the category of “modernity” is showing a trend of gradual deepening and refinement. As an analytical framework concerned with the issue of “modernity”, “Bie-modern” theory helps academia to re-examine relevant issues related to contemporary “modernity”, such as “Chineseness” and “multiple modernities”. Contemporary academia needs to understand and clarify the core connotations of “modernity” and adopt a historical and dialectical attitude to meet the opportunities and challenges brought by “modernity”.

The Construction of the Inner Aesthetic Theory of Bie-modernism from a Multidimensional Perspective think that Wang Jianjiang’s Bie-modernist inner aesthetic theory is an original aesthetic theory with Chinese characteristics and an important part of the Bie-modernist theoretical system. Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism provide intellectual resources for Bie-modernist inner aesthetic theory. Inner aesthetic theory is rooted in Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism and highlights the aesthetic characteristics of Chinese culture. Literary theory provides theoretical soil for Bie-modernist inner aesthetic theory. Theoretical discourse related to inner aesthetic theory is widely present in Chinese and Western literary theories. Neuroaesthetics with empirical characteristics provides scientific empirical support for inner aesthetic theory. By constructing Bie-modernist inner aesthetics theory from the perspectives of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, literary theory and neuroaesthetics, not only can the connotation and essence of its theory be more fully and accurately grasped, but it also gives the theory new vitality and continues to play its aesthetic value in the present.