Analysis Of The Theoretical Discourse Of The "Routinization Of Aesthetics"

Since the mid to late 1980s, great changes have taken place in contemporary China's social life. People pursue the poetic dwelling metaphysically while finding beauty everywhere in their daily life. Although the beauty is endued with more and more consumptive significations and cultural meanings, which further complicates the aesthetical expression of daily life, it reflects deeper changes of the popular aesthetic standards, values and cultural mentality in the transitional period of contemporary China. The blurring of aesthetics and daily life is an important cultural phenomenon in the development of modern society, which has attracted more and more attention from the academic community. Based on the reflections of daily life in the sense of modernity, combined with the social phenomenon of the aestheticization of everyday life, Western scholars start the reconstruction of aesthetics theoretically. Chinese scholars, in the double cultural context of globalization and social transformation, have to face the reality inevitably. The year 2003 in China witnessed a heated controversy over the aestheticization of everyday life, which undoubtedly starts the thoughts on the"routinization of aesthetics"in Chinese academia. The constant theoretical concern over and the academic exploration of the routinization of aesthetics help further develop the unique theories of discourse, which have become a way for people to evaluate contemporary cultural and literary phenomena and made the dialogue between Western aesthetics and Chinese aesthetics possible in terms of the aestheticization of everyday life.Against the background of social and cultural transition in contemporary China, by hackling the skeleton of the theory and the core issues concerning the routinization of aesthetics, the dissertation offers the cultural context and unique theoretical foundation for the routinization of aesthetics, reviews the controversy over the issue in contemporary literature and art theory as well as the textual practice of contemporary writers, and then discusses such problems as the establishment of people's right to speak, the reconsideration of daily life, intellectual search among the people and the reconstruction of the discipline, etc. so as to explore the mission of aesthetics in the new era of consumption culture and its connection with modern daily life. Finally, by analyzing the rational implications of discourse and its power relationship, the dissertation indicates the theoretical significance of the routinization of aesthetics in contemporary China.The critical theory of daily life and thoughts on the aestheticization of everyday life in the West provides the theoretical premise and academic resources for the dissertation in terms of both philosophy and aesthetics; on the other hand, the dissertation also uses Western consumption culture theory for reference. As the aestheticization of everyday life is the product of consumption culture, the intertwining of daily life with aesthetics cannot avoid the embarrassment of materialization which is governed by the consumption society. Bringing daily life into aesthetics not only broadens the extension of aesthetics, but enriches the intension of aesthetics as well, which naturally provides an opportunity for the academia to transform from traditional aesthetics to the contemporary one, and a fresh perspective to investigate contemporary culture, literature as well as aesthetic reflection. Simultaneously, daily life in the sense of modernity ruled by consumption logic causes certain troubles in the dimension of values, in other words, the passive consumption behavior of the subject intensifies the materialization of daily life. The structure pattern of daily life characterized by utilitarian, pragmatism and monotonous repetition fills the objectification process of human Gattungswesen with a strong sense of alienation. Criticism and reflection on daily life is under the shield of aestheticization, which is the source of academic abuses on the aestheticization of everyday life. Thus, the broadening of aesthetic extension has become a generalization of aesthetics and the weakening of the aesthetic intension if viewed from another perspective. With so complicated manifestations of the aestheticization of everyday life, it is doomed to have a heated discussion over the issue in present China. Discussion will help clarify the problems and that's why there is such a theoretical analysis on the routinization of aesthetics.In contemporary China, study on the routinization of aesthetics has not formed a mature theoretic system yet. However, various interpretations will undoubtedly throw light on the research into social-cultural phenomena; in particular, it is closely related to sociology, culturology, literary and art, aesthetics and literature, etc, providing multiple methods to handle the issue. Studies on the routinization of aesthetics in contemporary China have been subjected to a series of complicated changes from questioning, criticism, denial to the loosening of beliefs among the initial advocators, which has something to do with practical Chinese cultural context and speakers'personal limitations. But there is no denying that the phenomenon of the routinization of aesthetics, as well as the theoretical interpretation of the routinization of aesthetics, has its unique values and significance in the specific context of social-cultural transition, offering a feasible paradigm for some hot issues like discipline reconstruction, intellectual mission, folk definition, creation interpretation and so on. Consequently, the issue of the routinization of aesthetics has gone beyond the merely literary theory and carried with it more cultural elements.The fusion and introgression between aesthetics and daily life via mass media has led daily life into the category of aesthetics and in turn introduced the conceptual aesthetics into the practical field of daily life. For that reason,the theoretical analysis of the routinization of aesthetics is not only an academic interpretation of the aestheticization of everyday life in social life, but also a theoretical probe into the creation tendency of the routinization of aesthetics in literature and art.By virtue of interdisciplinary cultural studies, combined with theories on everyday life in terms of sociology and philosophy as well as the aesthetical reflection, the dissertation attempts to penetrate current cultural and literary phenomena and make a keen and objective analysis of the theoretical discourse of the routinization of aesthetics, trying to manifest contemporary writers'understanding of everyday life in consumption culture, their seeking for the sense of history and portrait of living conditions in the materialized world. Furthermore, the dissertation will also make a theoretical exploration into the absence of modernity theory, examining the dilemma of the theoretical discourse on the aestheticization of everyday life and its modern significance.