讲座时间：2014年11月3日（周一） 14：00——16:00
讲座地点：文波语音210教室
讲座题目：Ethics and Subjectivity in Brecht's Good Person of Szechwan
主讲人简介：郑杰，广东外语外贸大学“云山青年学者”，新加坡南洋理工大学博士，华中师范大学博士后。主要研究领域为现当代戏剧和文学理论。近期论文发表在Germany Quarterly，《外国文学研究》和《外国文学评论》等国内外权威核心期刊。
简介：Bertolt Brecht takes dealing with the problem of how the autonomy of individuality is threatened within capitalist production relations as a constant task in his plays. Yet we find that a concern with ethical problems and their relation to human subjectivity marks the plays he wrote in his later years, in particular, Galileo, Mother Courage, The Good Person of Szechwan, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, and Mr. Puntila and His Man Matti. Furthermore, a closer examination of these works suggests a number of elements within Brecht’s reflections on the very nature of ethics issues (such as “goodness”) and its constitutional function in one’s subjectivity bear a close parallel to humanistic ideas from Chinese philosophy (chiefly Confucianism and Taoism). It is in this context that the relationship of Brecht’s Good Person to Chinese classical philosophy becomes crucial to a better understanding of Brecht’s reconfiguration of the idea of the human subject. To this end, his consideration of such issues in his later works is perhaps best seen as a product of an ongoing dialogue (both affirmative and disruptive) between Western intellectual traditions and the philosophy of humanism within the Chinese tradition. In “negotiation” with Marxism, Confucianism and Taoism, though not unifying in themselves, operate on different levels in Brecht’s thinking. For while it may be an exaggeration to claim that Chinese influence plays a dominant role in Brecht’s reflection on ethics and subjectivity, my contention is that what Chinese thought offers is a clear means of challenging the dualisms that define traditional notions of human subjectivity (self/other, subject/object, good/bad, etc), and, thus, plays a crucial role in helping Brecht formulate his views.