Introduction: The Interactive Relations Between Science and Technology and Literary Studies

As we know, humanities and science and technology are two entirely different fields of knowledge, which appeal to different research methodologies. Since the ancient time, there has been such a relative consensus: science and technology is mostly opposed to humanities although occasionally not necessarily so, especially to literature and literary studies. People usually hold that in speaking of science and technology, the more recent, the better or more advanced. It is true that in evaluating a scientific or technological result, we may say that the discovery or research result has made a disruptive breakthrough that has completely replaced all the previous achievements. But it is not always necessarily true of humanities research results. In evaluating an achievement of the humanities studies, we often emphasize its inheritance and development of the ideas of its predecessors.In the Western humanities academia, if someone has a good command of Greek and Latin, he would be highly respected and admired by his colleagues and students for his profound learning and wide knowledge. In the Eastern countries, if a scholar understands Sanskrit or ancient Chinese, other people will admire him for his attainment in classics. So that is why people have got an opposite consensus on the humanities: the older the better. For the older ones have been historically proved valuable or correct and therefore become canonized, whereas the new ones have not yet experienced historical test and selection, the value of which cannot be adequately judged. That is why we always start from Homeric epics and Greek tragedies and comedies in teaching Western literature, and from Book of Poetry in teaching Chinese literature. Of course, in the European Renaissance period, there did appear quite a few erudite people who were very good at both science and humanities. And in other periods there were some writers who write about the topics of science and technology, hence we have science fiction as a border-crossing genre. But after all, such men of profound learning and interdisciplinary knowledge plus superb imagination are indeed very rare. Most people are good only at one area of learning or field of representation. That is why people have gradually reached such a consensus: science and technology are naturally opposed to humanities. You cannot do both well unless you are a genius.It is no doubt that from a humanistic perspective, or more specifically, from a literary point of view, we usually think that science and technology has little to do with literature and literary studies, let alone other disciplines of the humanities. It is certainly true to some extent as the quality and function of the two are largely different. But if we seriously consider this from a new perspective of the interactive relations between science and humanities, we may well find that literature and literary studies do have some relations with science and technology: both opposite and dialogic. For example, the rise of the genre of science fiction, which is now increasingly relevant to our life and attractive to literary scholars, is a typical genre combining science and technology with literary imagination and creation. To those elite writers and literary scholars in the traditional humanistic sense, science fiction does not represent the mainstream of literary creation. So they tend to neglect its value and impact on our life and literary production. Partly due to their dissatisfaction with the current high-technological approach to literature and art studies, which has raised a severe challenge to traditional humanistic approach to literary studies, and partly due to the slow reaction of humanities scholars and writers to the most advanced technology that has changed their life as well as the ways of research and writing, they even undervalue the function of technology in humanities and literary studies. As for this, we edit this special issue in an attempt to confront this challenge and try to prove that these two, science and technology and humanities, are possibly complementary.Readers will easily find that several authors in this issue deal with science fiction, especially the recent rise and popularization of science fiction in China, with some eminent authors winning various literary prizes internationally. Li Zou, starting from the issue of biotechnology, explores how futuristic technology transforms socioeconomic forms by analyzing Wang Jinkang's “The Reincarnated Giant” and “The Last Love” in an attempt to argue that biotechnology in China's science fiction “reshapes the politics of life and power dynamics in the society and transforms the socioeconomic institutions from one based on shared understanding and values into an apparatus controlled by interest oriented rationality and technology.” While Bo Li just focuses on Hong Kong's Chinese newspapers in which Western detective stories, especially the English ones, were translated and published in Chinese, which are “fraught with advanced science and technology and thus considered as miniature of China's modernity.” Both of the essays touch upon the elements of science and technology in literary works by starting with specific cases. They try to illustrate how the elements of science and technology often appear in various kinds of works in modern literature.Other authors, however, try to apply a scientific and technological approach to literary studies. In this way, we could say that science and literature both appeal to imagination, either artistic or scientific, without which neither scientific discovery nor literary creation could be achieved. Thus science and technology should not necessarily be opposed to literature and literary studies. If applied adequately, it will help study literature in a scientific and empirical way. A controversial example could be found in Franco Moretti's “distant reading” of world literature at present. To Moretti, world literature is an issue-driven topic. As different people think in different ways, “world literature cannot be literature, bigger … It has to be different. The categories have to be different. […] World literature is not an object, it's a problem, and a problem that asks for a new critical method: and no one has ever found a method by just reading more texts. That's not how theories come into being; they need a leap, a wager—a hypothesis, to get started”.1 What kind of leap should literary scholars have? Certainly getting out of the text and keeping a distance to observe a large number of literary texts is an efficient way of world literature studies. Since one cannot read all the literary works of the world in his lifetime, or even the major world masterpieces, Moretti proposes a sort of “distant reading,” where distance “is a condition of knowledge: it allows you to focus on units that are much smaller or much larger than the text: devices, themes, tropes—or genres and systems.”2 Through this method of “distant reading” one can at least have a general picture of world literature. Although those good at close reading easily feel the challenge, I think it might well compensate for the neglect of numerous literary works from different parts of the world, especially from those marginal countries or regions. In this aspect, two essays deal with the possible solution to this challenge. In Qinglong Peng, as a “new approach to comparative literature studies, digital humanities promises to expand the subject matter and methodology of such studies.” Peng enthusiastically calls for a digital humanities approach to all the studies of literature, history and philosophy, and culture. He obviously believes in the prospect of this methodology. In response to Peng's optimistic attitude toward the impact of digital humanities, Yifeng Sun and Dechao Li, mainly as translation scholars, try to narrow it down and apply this methodology to literary translation: “With DH gaining increasingly more momentum in comparative literary studies, its technology and research methodology have progressively reshaped literary translation.” To them, “a comprehensive review of how DH has transformed the practice and scholarship of literary translation and also a synoptic outline of how it might continue to shed new light on this sub-field of translation studies seem quite necessary, especially if we want to gain a more in-depth understanding of the relationship between literature and other social and cultural activities across linguistic and national boundaries.” The authors of both essays welcome with great enthusiasm the coming of new technology intervening in traditional humanities research, especially in comparative literature studies and the studies of literary translation.It is true that when we read modernist literary works, we have no difficulty finding the sharp critique those modernist writers have of modern industrialization and the impact of modern technology on humanities, especially on literary creation and studies. In those works, science and technology appear to be opposed to humanities and literature. But that is not the whole story about the relations between science and technology and literature.In various postmodern theories and trends, however, science and technology are not always opposed to humanities and literature, which finds particular embodiment in the recent rise of posthumanism, which actually resets the relation between human and his or her invented thing: technology and machine. In the posthuman era, humans are no longer thought of masters of all the living things on earth. They are nothing but one species of every living thing. They cannot change or conquer nature, but on many occasions are changed or conquered by nature and science and technology. Their life has also been changed by the appearance of various advanced technologies in the current global era. The widely talked about topic of cloning technology in the present era raises such a severe challenge to human beings and their reproduction. Since animals could be cloned, is not it a matter of time before the appearance of cloning men? Stimulated by the hope for a bright future and an easier life, people continuously work hard to invent new and advanced technologies for the purpose of reducing our labor and benefit ourselves as well as our offspring. If we cannot invent all of them in real life, we can at least conceive of them in our imaginary literary works. Thus science fiction may well satisfy people's desire for a better life in the future. Chen Qiufan's Waste Tide is such a novel of superb artistic imagination, on which both Yuqin Jiang and Yuanyuan Hua offer their critical analysis from different theoretical perspectives: Jiang's tries to point out from a posthuman perspective that the novel exposes the cyborg's alienation from the development of high technology and a sick society; while Hua's starts from the Frankfurt School's critical theory to examine the dual alienation—“the interrelated processes of the alienation of human nature and the alienation of nature” in the novel. These two kinds of alienation in the contemporary era cannot be avoided along with the advancement of science and technology. Wang Liao focuses on Hao Jingfang's interesting and popular novel Folding Beijing. This metropolis has experienced rapid development in the past decades, in the process of which various problems have occurred. The reason why the novel attracts contemporary readers simply because it exposes some “urban diseases” behind the seemingly prosperous appearance. To Liao, Hao's novel “demonstrates that there is still reason and hope to fight for a multicolored, natural and heterogeneous future. Furthermore, the increasing rate of unemployment, the shortfall of infrastructure capacity and the scarcity of natural resources are all symptoms of the ‘urban diseases’ which are challenging Beijing and many big cities around the world.” Wei Lu, through reading Japanese-British novelist Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go from a perspective of “sci-fi realism,” which has been developed as a theoretical concept “by some Chinese sci-fi writers/critics to reveal the relationship between the development of sci-fi writing in the increasingly rapid advancement of science and technology in the world and the allegorical nature of dystopian sci-fi realism as an effective social critique in its recent development.” Starting from this perspective, Lu thinks that Ishiguro's novel is “a text of realist dystopian science fiction, with the elements of realism and science fiction oppositional, or even antithetical to each other in several aspects.” But the two elements, scientific and fictional, are well “mixed and blended in one single text.”It is not surprising that humans always desire for a better world. Sometimes they even do something ridiculously stupid to satisfy their insatiable desires. If they cannot find a wonderland in the real world, they could at least create it in a fictional world or even an imaginary cyber world. Yuming Piao describes a very interesting but fantastic Korean story “Dr. K's Research” by Dong-in Kim who tries to prove that sometimes a scientific success could turn out an “ethical failure” if one believes science and technology could make everything possible. Dr. K works very hard in his research because he wants to “invent artificial food from feces with a scientific method” for the purpose of solving the food problem people are confronted with. But it is ridiculous to have people eat the so-called artificial food made from feces as it is a violation of fundamental moral values. In this sense, a scientifically successful result does not necessarily mean ethically correct.As I have pointed out previously that since the ancient time, there has always been a debate about the relations between science and humanities. Thus Mingming Su and Bin Jin's essay offers a rereading of Samuel Butler's works on evolution from a Chinese and posthuman perspective and shows how Butler anticipates the posthumanist discourse, which is characterized by the decline and deconstruction of the anthropocentric way of thinking and which is different from Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. To the two authors, “Although Butler accepts natural selection as one of the factors of evolution, he argues that it is totally inadequate as a principal means of variation.” Thus he shows his different attitude from Charles Darwin from a writer's perspective although they both advocate evolution. The fundamental reason “for the contradictions in his attitude towards machine and technology seems to be that he is both the rightful heir to traditional humanism and the pioneer who predicts posthumanism.” Perhaps that is the very reason why we still read Butler's works today and could find something illuminative in them. Yang Mu's essay focuses on Ken Liu's Nebula winning novel The Grace of Kings, from a Chinese perspective. Through her close reading of the contemporary novel, Mu tries to show how “Chinese” writing “may blaze an alternative trail for the genre and suggest a possible way out for the alienated humanity in the era of advanced technology by presenting the philosophical, the political and the scientific technologies in classical Chinese thoughts.” She wants to show that ancient China had a tradition of humanistic ideas as well as scientific thoughts whose value has not yet been adequately discovered and used.In most essays of this special issue, the topic of the posthuman is more or less touched upon. I will elaborate it a bit more theoretically here although I did it elsewhere.3 As I pointed out several years ago, “science should not necessarily be opposed to the humanities. We might mediate between science and the humanities, and even bridge the gap between the two.”4 In this aspect, posthumanism will play such a role. Obviously, posthumanism came after the decline of humanism, but it does not necessarily mean the end of humanism. It has actually transcended over the human-oriented doctrine, for in the past hundred years, the function and position of humans were highlighted so much so that they almost shadow all the other living things on the earth.As some of the essays illustrate, posthumanism signals the increasing alienation of humans brought about by a change in mankind's function on earth. Cary Wolfe, one of its leading theorists in the contemporary era, has no doubt helped push forward this of What has more or less the For Wolfe, is the of and way of with those when we can no longer on as an who an point for about the world to which such a to But confronted with the severe challenge raised by the rise of posthumanism to we cannot but are the when human beings are of living things on earth. in their traditional have become They are nothing but one of the numerous living things on which also finds embodiment in the relations between humans and various That is why some of the the advanced of them still to write in and them by than with people through or with To these humanities in its traditional are naturally opposed to science and is true that humans have invented various kinds of and developed various advanced with advanced and various are now widely in almost all in both and humanities, which finds embodiment in the recent rise of digital humanities. This new technology has certainly the seemingly opposite relations between technology and literary as well as humanities studies the scientific and technological While new technologies are efficient and for people to from hard they also about with large of into the of the For in the current of all have and many have have to and also and there has the of of teaching and who are not popular students have to be and some who are not good at teaching and little have been to In or to to in those research teaching could either do research or writing at so that they could is even that humans may no longer be to or some of their and This has been in literary works that our critical and and Since this is not a that in an or but a global as should certainly to it and seriously study The present special issue is thus to this in the current postmodern era from a comparative and perspective by more on has in the countries where and science and technology have been so in the past that it is even people's and a result of the impact of various technologies on human life and many have been over by the rise of scholars no longer need which are increasingly people have become to these especially to their without which they could and work easily and of them would do with or other means of which has made a impact on the function of have to or with which invented or which invented to that they do not the traditional relation between and machine has been it is not the human who the but the machine that is more or less in of Since all these are in literary works, as literary scholars, we should observe them in our comparative ways posthumanism may it will not necessarily mean the of the function and of It is true that human is by various but in its fight and with nature it from a life the of is also by is a means of people's and It is true that the artificial or could also literary works, and even The is true of which is often to as machine translation and the more advanced translation have been by and But when it to still to a It is therefore not surprising that some people that in machine and translation will gradually or it will human when it to literary and theoretical with and machine and translation often make literary works can only be by writers with profound knowledge, and writing which can be replaced by other means of and because only people can and cultural literature. those who are literary can literary works of which cannot even be by other humans who are less Chinese that literary is his which can be can his his only those who have a wide knowledge and great literary and can literary works into their In this special issue, two of the authors deal with the and offer their and but not Since we are we are most about the future of comparative literature. To comparative literature in the of is increasingly characterized by interdisciplinary studies the of disciplines and of learning and fields of representation. with the increasingly attractive topic of world literature, the so-called “distant reading” may well be a very effective research But the rise of reading cannot necessarily the function of traditional close It is through close reading that one can the of literary In this way, digital humanities may also a to comparative studies of literature in the future. Although they been around since at least it the and World that they came into their as fields with their research and and a of the impact of various especially from other there is a to to literary studies and digital resources are increasingly applied to empirical studies of comparative and world literature. Perhaps it is why we to edit this special issue on technology in comparative literature studies.