The main object of the study, The Saturday (1914–1916, 1921–1923), was one of the most influential popular journals in Republican China (1911–1949). It was also of notorious reputation. The journal gradually acquired a bad name after it resumed publication in 1921. The activists of the New Culture Movement made “The Saturday School” a special term to describe a corrupt type of literature which pursued entertainment and profit. Following in the wake of recent reevaluations of the popular literature of the Republican period, this dissertation proposes a rereading of the journal based on the interaction between textual analysis and historical contextualization.

One keyword of the present research is “short story”. At the turn of the twentieth century, this newly “imported” genre u...[ Read more ]

The main object of the study, The Saturday (1914–1916, 1921–1923), was one of the most influential popular journals in Republican China (1911–1949). It was also of notorious reputation. The journal gradually acquired a bad name after it resumed publication in 1921. The activists of the New Culture Movement made “The Saturday School” a special term to describe a corrupt type of literature which pursued entertainment and profit. Following in the wake of recent reevaluations of the popular literature of the Republican period, this dissertation proposes a rereading of the journal based on the interaction between textual analysis and historical contextualization.

One keyword of the present research is “short story”. At the turn of the twentieth century, this newly “imported” genre underwent a process of institutionalization in periodicals. When The Saturday first came out in 1914, the proportion of short stories was already higher than any other literary form contained in the journal. Being a narrative genre that well matched the venue of periodical, the short story was taken into full play as a preferred medium of expression by popular authors. The discussion reveals The Saturday’s distinctive practice of the short story in comparison to other literary forces such as the May Fourth writers. It is further elaborated that the literary genre was developed into the representation of a “structure of feeling” at a particular time and place.

Chapter I reviews the relevant studies on print industry and popular culture in modern China. It problematizes the repositioning of the “popular” by introducing The Saturday as an “axis” of the literary relation network. Chapter II gives prominence to the cross-cultural perspectives in the early years of The Saturday. The concept of “translation” here is broadened into a process of introduction, recreation and appropriation. Chapter III explores a series of narrative patterns or images in the original short stories published in the journal. These repeatedly appearing “props” became symbolic signifiers and facilitated the construction of a meaningful narrative space. Chapter IV observes the conceptualization of the “Saturday” brand and its author-reader community in its daily creation activities. Two special sorts of short stories, the advertising stories and the stories based on the images of “fiction writer” and “reader”, are taken into consideration. Chapter V probes the “new-old” debate that started in 1921 by taking The Saturday as a trigger that enabled the encounters between different cultural forces. The discussion unfolds the popular camp’s active participation in the debate, and reassesses the popular writers’ critical ability and cultural awareness. More importantly, the discussion challenges the orthodox division of “new-old” by revisiting the historical scene.