Technology intervened in aesthetics even earlier. I think literary studies should be aware of the profound changes: science and technology have begun to rewrite the code of aesthetics. How to deal with the anxiety of longing for a foreign place? What has the Internet brought to nostalgia? How do human relationships in the virtual space, such as online dating, impact the social fabric of real society? Do those mobile phone activists who 'swipe' the screen all the time still have a feeling for the images of agricultural civilization such as green peaks, sunsets, small bridges, and flowing water? In addition, the new mass media created by science and technology have formed a variety of linguistic symbols, narrative grammar and reading methods that are different from the traditional ones. Literary theory must anticipate what all this will bring to literature. Virtuality, literary fiction and the metaverse
Recently, the concept of "metaverse" has sprung up and suddenly become a hot topic. Like a new high-performing stock of theory, theorists from many disciplines gathered together and expressed their great attention. According to multiple accounts, a new type of behemoth has appeared on the horizon and is moving rapidly towards us。Unlike many of the grand propositions of the social sciences, the metaverse is not just a mirage of conceptual assembly, but contains all kinds of "hardware", such as the Internet, virtual reality devices, and of course, super databases, and the entrance to this behemoth may be the mobile phone that people hold in their hands at all times.
It is precisely because of its visible connection to the everyday world that the metaverse is not so difficult to understand – at least not as obscure as Kant, Heidegger, Derrida, and Lacan. Roughly speaking, the metaverse is another parallel world built on the basis of the Internet. This parallel world is virtual, and people can freely enter and exit, establish new identities, and experience a different kind of life from the real world, such as being a hero of martial arts, a princess who has fallen into the city, a domineering president who is rich and rivals, and so on. According to Roblox, the true metaverse consists of the following characteristics: identity, friends, immersion, low latency, diversity, anywhere, economy, and civilization. These characteristics can be left for later explanation. For the ordinary public in the rolling red dust, "immersion" is obviously the most attractive concept. Immerse yourself in another legendary world, without barriers, empathy, both exaggerated and realistic. Many have referred to Neil Stephenson's 1992 sci-fi Snow Crash. The protagonist shuttles freely between the real society and the virtual space of the Internet, and stages all kinds of wonderful life dramas. The virtual space of "Snow Crash" is so fascinating, this ** is like an image annotation of the concept of the metaverse. Many even feel that the brilliant imagination of "Snow Crash" provided the initial inspiration for today's metaverse ideas.
These descriptions may be banal, preliminary, or even well-known. However, this does not in any way diminish the importance of the metaverse. On the contrary,The energy of the mind liberated by this concept is expanding in all directions. Economists were present to comprehensively discuss the capital agglomeration and industrial chain distribution brought about by the metaverse; Jurists were present and talked about the rules of virtual space and its social governance; Sociologists were present to demonstrate the autonomy and sustainability of the metaverse; Communications scientists arrived to investigate what a spectacular communication revolution the metaverse means; From futurists, educators, architects, and urban planners to semiotics, weapons experts, combat masters, nutritionists, and all kinds of people can find topics that are interconnected with the metaverse. Of course, many of the discourses are superficial, and the reason why this is so just shows that the concept of the metaverse has unusual depth and connotation.
My focus on the metaverse is twofold. First of all, the metaverse shows an increasingly powerful technological logic within history, with various landscapes beginning to reorganize around technology to form new structures, and new structures have begun to deeply intervene in the development of history. Second, the connection between the metaverse and the existence of literature. I am both unfamiliar and amateur to the prospects of Internet technology in relation to all kinds of literary knowledge. Many times, I have to invoke literary knowledge as a guide to understanding the metaverse, just as invoking the landscape of the Earth compared to the surface of Mars. At least in my mind, there are various gaps in the narrative between the two, from literature to the metaverse. Still, I'm willing to take a theoretical trip full of unknowns – filling in knowledge gaps, while also helping to figure out what the metaverse will bring and what new questions it will create.
For a long time, the so-called high-tech was embedded on the edge of life, as if it had little to do with people's daily life and diet. Space stations, space shuttles, bioengineering or deep-sea submarines, polar expeditions seem to be the business of a few, and some theoretical propositions are circulated in a number of laboratories for scientists to engage in professional discussions. However, in recent decades, various technologies and machines have intensively entered daily life, especially various new technologies centered on the Internet have been transformed into various daily behaviors, such as online car-hailing, Alipay, telemedicine, etc. A mobile phone is just a small machine. Reaching out and pressing a few numbers on the gadget in the palm, another partner who was thousands of miles away came out in response - among the ancient gods and demons, this must be an amazing magic weapon, and now people are used to seeing it. YesAn important change in the living environment is evident: the number of electrical appliances is increasing, and more and more things are being solved by a few digital buttons. Of course, the continuous improvement of the living environment has not changed the basic feeling that people know that there is a bustling city outside the apartment, and there are vast fields, mountains and oceans outside the city.
However, the metaverse, which is moving rapidly towards us, will completely upend this basic feeling. An Internet technology is on the horizon for homes, cities, fields, mountains, and seas. Is this a fantasy? I don't know – but I have to mention the fact that technology has been enabling something for decades faster than many people expected. People often feel that some scenes are still a distant idea, at least thousands of miles away; What is amazing is that these scenes have arrived in an instant, quickly encroaching on all corners of life, and even becoming a solidified reality. The acceleration of technology is certainly a happy thing. When we think of so many noble emperors in ancient times who never watched television, we often realize that we are lucky. However, people should not be blind to new problems because of this luck. Many new technological inventions have also incubated new cultures and new moral concepts. Automobiles have contributed greatly to the formation of modern society. As a regular means of delivery, a large part of the speed of modern society is done by cars. At the same time, car culture has created ideas that were not found in other classical societies. For example, leaving the land where you grew up and going to a distant land. In ancient times, many peasants could only move within a radius of tens of square kilometers in their lifetimes, and this distance was just a step on the accelerator for a car. Car culture weakens the meaning of "roots" while making the distant horizon no longer out of reach. The cheers of technological acceleration can sometimes obscure another situation: people's cultural or moral level is far from ready. What would happen if people's cultural concepts or moral level were still a product of the cold weapons era, and they already had automatic rifles, rocket artillery, and nuclear weapons in their hands?
The lag in cultural or moral standards does not slow down or even stop the development of technology. One of the things that is very interesting is that technology will come up with its own cultural ideas。C. in the United Kingdom p.** "Two Cultures" is a famous work, he distinguishes between humanistic culture and scientific culture. Many people still vaguely feel that philosophy talks about ontology, and technology is nothing more than a concrete means of realization. The metaphysical is the way, and the metaphysical is the instrument. However, the scientific culture brought about by technology is expanding dramatically, and it is even eager to replace humanistic culture. As I once pointed out, "Scientific discourse has shown a strong desire to win the Tao. Obviously, quite a number of philosophical ideas are incompatible with scientific discourse – and if one is willing to face up to this fact, then another fact will emerge at the same time: the latter is becoming a strong competitive interpretation of the ontology of existence. In other words, some scientific cultures try to reconstruct another humanistic culture according to the logic of technology. Historiography is an ancient center of humanistic culture. The significance of history is manifold. In addition to recording all kinds of events, history is also the memory of the nation, the basis of national identity。Of course, modern historiography has been deeply involved in some extended theoretical questions, such as historical narratology, whether the content of the historian's narrative is consistent with what happened, and what does the difference between the two mean; If it is not recorded, what is the basis for the trade-off? There is a similar situation in the memory of peoples: there may be discrepancies between certain memories and what happened. Memories may preserve all sorts of humiliating and painful experiences, which will create complex entanglements in national identity. However, life in the metaverse can easily re-edit past data according to various needs, adding some content or knocking out certain memories. These techniques will have a drastic impact on traditional notions of history. Of course, the impact inevitably ripples over to philosophy. What is "true"? What is "life"? Technology not only provides different answers, but more importantly begins to offer another way of thinking.
Technology intervened in aesthetics even earlier. I think literary studies should be aware of the profound changes: science and technology have begun to rewrite the code of aesthetics. How to deal with the anxiety of longing for a foreign place? What has the Internet brought to nostalgia? How do human relationships in the virtual space, such as online dating, impact the social fabric of real society? Do those mobile phone activists who 'swipe' the screen all the time still have a feeling for the images of agricultural civilization such as green peaks, sunsets, small bridges, and flowing water? How to judge the **, poems and calligraphy works 'created' by artificial intelligence and robots? In addition, the new mass media created by science and technology have formed a variety of linguistic symbols, narrative grammar and reading methods that are different from the traditional ones. Literary theory must anticipate what all this will bring to literature. ”
Science fiction – a genre of literature – has a strong focus on technical themes. Much of science fiction literature depicts precisely the terrible consequences of the unbridled proliferation of technology. Frankly, my interest in science fiction literature is rather limited; However, I noticed a trend in the study of science fiction literature that was heating up dramatically. To a large extent, this is a cultural echo brought about by the dramatic expansion of technology. Is the metaverse a fantasy in terms of technical logic, or is it a possible or even imminent reality? It is necessary for literature to respond. The word "literature" in Chinese was first found in the Analects, and it has evolved over thousands of years to form a lot of "literary" expertise. The "metaverse" has just emerged, and 2021 is known as the first year of the "metaverse". Nevertheless, the expertise of numerous "literature" immediately felt the pressure of this concept.
The interface between the two is in **? I chose to start with the concept of "fiction".
The above is compiled from The Place of Literature: Challenges and Games
The Place of Literature: Challenges and Games
Written by Nan Fan. What is the place of literature within the current new cultural structure? For the first time, this book starts from the perspectives of "aesthetics" and "history" of literature, narrative discourse and literary criticism, and goes to the "position of literature". 
Introduction:
What is the place of literature within the current new cultural structure? This book provides an in-depth discussion from the perspectives of "aesthetics" and "history" of literature, narrative discourse, and literary criticism.
The specific content is divided into three parts: the first part is "Literature: Aesthetics and Historical Perspectives", which mainly focuses on the "aesthetics" and "history" of literature, and the existence of "aesthetics" is undoubtedly an important reason why literature has not been covered by various disciplines such as philosophy, history, economics, and sociology. While the strong aesthetic pleasure appeals to the sensibility, the aesthetic experience is not only a psychological tidal wave brought about by a few works of art, but may be transformed into another historical cognition. Of course, the so-called historical cognition contains different perspectives and concepts. The intervention of aesthetics is to form an active dialogue with these perspectives and concepts, and this dialogue process is a process of "game". The second part is "Classical and Modern: Narrative and Its Virtual Space", compared with the elegant, introverted, "gentle and generous" classical literature, the current public is more willing to enjoy the legends, suspense, twists and turns provided by narrative literature, and modern "narratology" also goes far beyond the theoretical vision of structuralism and has a richer connotation. As modern science and technology intervene so strongly in contemporary narratives, the Internet is creating a variety of new narrative discourses, and as a result, current literature is facing great challenges. The third part is "Interpretation: Openness and Boundaries", which is the core issue of the modern turn of hermeneutics, namely "open borders", and literary criticism is a special branch of interpretation, and because interpretation has gained a path into historical depth. This part is mainly from the perspective of literary criticism, and the debate around "open borders" is repeated, because how to interpret it will ultimately involve the shaping form of the spirit.
About the Author:
Zhang Fan, pen name Nanfan, graduated from Xiamen University in 1982 and graduated from East China Normal University in 1984. He has served as the vice chairman of the Fujian Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the vice chairman of the ** Committee of the China Association for the Promotion of Democracy, the director of the Fujian Provincial Committee of the China Association for the Promotion of Democracy, the president of the Fujian Academy of Social Sciences, the chairman of the Fujian Provincial Federation of Literary and Art Circles, and the president of the Chinese Literature and Art Theory Society. He has served as a deputy to the Ninth National People's Congress.
10. Member of the Standing Committee of the 11th, 12th and 13th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. He is a first-class expert with special allowances, a young and middle-aged expert with outstanding contributions from the Ministry of Personnel, a national-level candidate for the "New Century Millions of Talents Project", a "second batch of 'four batches' of talents in the national propaganda and cultural system" of the Central Propaganda Department, and an outstanding expert in Fujian Province.
He has published a number of academic monographs such as "The Dimension of Literature", "The Literature of Conflict", "The Post-Revolutionary Shift", "The Nameless Energy", and "The Multiple Images of the Avant-garde". He has published more than 300 articles in newspapers and periodicals such as "Chinese Social Sciences", "Literary Criticism", "Literature and Art Research" and "People**" Guangming**", and more than 30 articles have been published in the full text of "Xinhua Digest"; He has undertaken many national social science projects. The 7th Wu Yuzhang Humanities and Social Sciences Award (2017), the 4th Lu Xun Literature Award (2007), and the 5th Lu Xun Literature Award (2010) for his academic work Five Images. He has won many awards such as the first prize of Fujian Provincial Social Science Outstanding Achievement, the first prize of Literary and Art Criticism of China Federation of Literary and Art Circles, and the first prize of Fujian Provincial Outstanding Works. Table of Contents
Part I: Literature: Aesthetic and Historical Perspectives.
Chapter 1 Cultural Structure, Modernity: The Place of Literature.
Chapter 2 Literature: Conceptual Construction and Popular Entertainment.
Chapter 3 Challenges and Games: After Cultural Studies.
Chapter 4 Aestheticism and Its Historical Perspective.
Chapter 5 Literary Criticism and the Concept of "History".
Chapter 6 The Conception and Contradiction of "Historicization".
Chapter 7 Literary Theory: The Connotation, Connection, and Extension of Certain Propositions.
Part II: Classical and Modern: Narrative and Its Virtual Space.
Chapter 8: The Debate Between Elegance and Vulgarity.
Chapter 9 "Fun": Spanning the Classical and the Modern.
Chapter 10 Let's Tell a Story: Narrative and Interpretation of the Plot.
Chapter 11 The Swinging Narratology: Characters or Language?
Chapter 12 The Premise of Optimism: Enchantment and Resurrection.
Chapter 13 Virtuality, Literary Fiction, and the Metaverse.
Chapter 14: Internet Blessings and the Genealogy of Literary Criticism.
Part 3: Openness and Borders.
Chapter 15 Literary Criticism: Eight Problems and One Solution.
Chapter 16 Interpretations of Openness and Its Boundaries.
Chapter 17: Authors, Readers, and Interpretations.
Chapter 18 The Consensus of Interpretation: Reading Professor Zhang Jiang's "On the Finite and Infinite of Interpretation".
Addendum: Limitations of Mathematical Language.
Chapter 19: The Dialectical Balance of Interpretation.
Chapter 20 Literary Criticism, Interpretation, and Space of Meaning.
Postscript.