The use of the sublime, the rise of self: discursive practice of Zhang Chengzhi's "Sublime Writing"

Abstract: The dissertation examines the contemporary Chinese Muslim writer Zhang Chengzhi’s writing cosmos of the sublime. The sublime for Zhang, progresses concomitantly with aesthetic taste and literary style as writing practice, living style as daily practice, and individual/collective identity in practices inside and outside of text. In other words, the dissertation discusses the production of meanings and uses of the term “sublime”. In order to clarify the discourse of the sublime, I examine texts by Zhang, paratext about Zhang and context related to disputes of the sublime. Such an admixture is significant for investigating the rich and varied range of meanings of the sublime. Specially, the two-dimensional conceptualization (the static sublime and the practical sublime) has provided a new approach to considering Zhang’s textual practice. Likewise, the dissertation traces how the sublime has been interpreted (sublime, de-sublime or anti-sublime) as their discursive strategies by contemporary Chinese writers and intellectuals since the foundation of People’s Republic of China. This review provides a vital way of viewing the similarities and differences between Zhang and his peers, and of exploring how Zhang’s identity is constructed both by himself and within such a context. Additionally, the dissertation deals with interactions and tension between author and reader both inside and outside of text with influences of media. The coherence and divergence between the author, his readership and the media make the meaning-production of the sublime much more clear.

The sublime counteracts the materialism and consumerism in the post-Mao society as some critics note; but rather, it reflects how writers and intellectuals—taking Zhang as a typical example in this dissertation—deal with an identity crisis within the context of globalization and marginalization of the ethnic minorities and Jahryyia. Therefore, the dissertation proposes four functions of the sublime: Sublime as nostalgia: psychological response to the disillusionment of utopia in the new era of post-revolution; Sublime as quasi-propaganda: literary response to the marginalization of Jahriyya Muslims; Sublime as distinction: aesthetic, rhetorical and moral response to the condition of consumerist culture; Anti-/De-sublime as anti-essentialism: deconstructive strategic response to the essentialist perception of the sublime. The dissertation thus sheds new light on Zhang’s writing of the sublime with the larger aim of showing how the sublime is used to construct a self by means of self-discovery, contradiction, alienation, and self-transcendence as response to the crisis of identity and meaning

Object Details

• Location: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
• Extent: Online-Ressource
• Language: Englisch
• Notes: Universität Freiburg, Dissertation, 2021

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Literatur, Rhetorik, Literaturwissenschaft
• Keyword: Writing

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (where): Freiburg
• (who): Universität
• (when): 2021
• Creator: Dang, Xiayin
• Contributor: Henningsen, Lena ; Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg. Philosophische Fakultät

Further information

• DOI: 10.6094/UNIFR/221490
• URN: urn:nbn:de:bsz:25-freidok-2214909
• Rights: Kein Open Access; Der Zugriff auf das Objekt ist unbeschränkt möglich.
• Last update: 25.03.2025, 1:54 PM CET