The study of utopia abroad started very early and has a long history. It can be traced back to Aristotle's Politics in ancient Greece. After the Renaissance, there was greater development, and the Utopia era gradually declined in the first half of the 20th century, while Utopia research just matured and flourished after World War II. Since 1970s, due to the differences of research methods, especially the differences of research value orientation, utopia research has gradually become diversified.
Domestic research on Utopia started late and lagged behind. Generally speaking, it can be divided into three stages: from the founding of New China to the Cultural Revolution, utopia socialism was mainly studied, and dystopia was the mainstream from the end of the Cultural Revolution to the beginning of the 1990s. Since the mid-1990s, many scholars have realized the value of Utopia and reconsidered it. They not only continue to translate and evaluate foreign works about Utopia, but also publish a large number of papers. According to the online publishing database of China HowNet and China Academic Journals,1979-2008 * * 985 papers were retrieved, including 1990-2008 * * 930 papers and 2006-2008 * * 339 papers. There are even a large number of dissertations and several related works. According to the search, there are 16 doctoral dissertations entitled Utopia, 67 excellent master's dissertations and nearly 20 related works. These achievements have deeply discussed Utopia from philosophy, politics, sociology, history, culturology and other aspects, representing China's theoretical thinking level of Utopia at the turn of the century.
In particular, in this process of reflection and diversification, in recent years, aesthetic utopia, as the most important manifestation of utopia, has risen unprecedentedly in the world and attracted more and more attention, becoming a hot spot and a new trend in academic research at home and abroad.
As for the study of aesthetic utopia abroad, we can get a glimpse from the study of utopia literature as one of the components of aesthetic utopia. Dr. Li Xiaoqing has made a detailed analysis of this. He believes that although utopian literature has a long history, it was not until modern times that this literary phenomenon was consciously raised to the utopian level for research. The study of utopian literature in the sense of consciousness abroad has developed slowly since 1930s, and reached its peak in recent 20 years. Nearly 100 kinds of utopian literary works have been published in the west (including the former Soviet Union), with more than 2,000 kinds of utopian works, which have achieved fruitful research results. Among them, utopian literature is studied as a whole, such as "Utopian/dystopian Literature: Reference Index of Literary Criticism" by Paul Haschak, "Encyclopedia of Utopian Literature" edited by Si Nuo Glass, and so on. The famous History of British and American Literature gives a brief introduction and evaluation of utopian literature in western countries. For example, Davies Utopia and Ideal Society: 15 16- 1700 British Utopia works, etc. In addition to specialized works, there are a large number of literary research publications and a large number of research papers published on them. The magazine Utopia Studies in the United States specializes in utopian literary works around the world. In the past 70 years, some major literary research magazines and periodicals in Britain and America have published or extracted critical research papers on utopian literature in more than 70 journals in Britain and America. Therefore, Yao Jianbin, a young scholar, lamented: "As long as you type the words" Utopia Literature "or" Utopia Literature "in a search engine like Google, at least you will find more than100000 pages or websites waiting for you to visit. Think about it, what kind of concept is100000! Even so, the prosperity of utopian literature research, on the whole, can be imagined.
The study of aesthetic utopia in China has also developed rapidly, with an unprecedented climax. According to statistics, among more than 600 papers published in recent years, about 50 articles directly use the expression of aesthetic utopia in their titles, such as Utopia and Aesthetic Utopia by Zou Qiang, On Aesthetic Utopia by Yan Xianglin and Towards Aesthetic Utopia by Marui. Although some of them are not directly used in the topic, the objects or problems discussed should actually belong to the study of aesthetic utopia. There are also a large number of papers on utopian literature and art: some study utopian literature as a whole, such as Yao Jianbin's Outline of Utopian Literature and Utopian Novels: Studying the Art of Being, and Qin Qinghui's On the Aesthetic Significance and Practical Value of Utopia in World Literature. Some study utopian literature of different countries, regions, periods, ideological trends and schools; Others study utopian literature from the aspects of writers and types of works. In the thesis about Utopia, the study of aesthetic Utopia also accounts for a large proportion. In 16 doctoral dissertations, 9 studies can be regarded as aesthetic utopia, including the English romantic Vingo aesthetic utopia complex. Among the 67 excellent master's theses, 32 also belong to this category, such as Zou Qiang's Study on Aesthetic Utopia of Frankfurt School. And these papers are basically written since the new century. What's more noteworthy is that related works have come out one after another, such as Utopia and Poetry —— the Cultural and Literary Values of Ancient China Literati by Li, From Entertainment to Utopia Impulse —— Re-interpretation of Jin Yong's Novels, Unfinished Aesthetic Utopia: A Study on the Autonomy of Modern China Literature, and Personal Utopia Tendency of Western Modernist Literature. These achievements involve not only the theoretical form and image form of aesthetic utopia, but also different countries, ideological trends, schools, writers' works, different types and tendencies. In particular, the study of the aesthetic utopia thought of the representatives of western Marxism and Frankfurt School has become a remarkable symbol of this research trend.
There are many reasons why aesthetic utopia research has become a new trend of utopia research.
First of all, from the etymological analysis, Utopia originally has the meaning of "beauty". As we all know, the word Utopia comes from Thomas Moore's book On Perfect State System and Utopia New Island written in England in 15 16. Moore coined the word "utopia" from ancient Greek. Since then, "Utopia" has been constantly explained and interpreted, even misunderstood and misread intentionally or unintentionally, and its meaning has been continuously expanded and generalized. Today, there are so many opinions that it is almost all-encompassing, that some people say that Utopia is like a "laundry list", everything can be put in the past, making it difficult for us to see its true colors. However, according to the textual research of American scholar Mount Ford, from the etymological point of view, "Utopia" is composed of "U" and "topia". "U" comes from the Greek word "ou", which means negation, and "topia" comes from the Greek word "topus", which means place or region. These two parts together mean "a place that doesn't exist". At the same time, "u" can also be associated with the Greek word "eu", which has a beautiful and perfect meaning. So "Utopia" can also be understood as "eutopia", that is, a perfect and ideal place. Here, the meaning of utopia presents a double paradoxical meaning structure of "beauty" and "nothingness", and these puns are the proper meaning of utopia. However, for a long time, due to various reasons, people regard Utopia as an illusory or unrealistic idea that has never been realized or will never be realized. It is synonymous with fantasy, fantasy and meaningless, and its pun meaning is often ignored, obscured or even dispelled, leaving only the meaning of nothing. In this sense, the study of aesthetic utopia is to pay attention to the neglected, open the hidden, restore the digested, and restore the original complete face of utopia.
Secondly, from the perspective of expression or stylistic origin, utopia is often expressed in the form of utopian literature or utopian novels, which provides rich historical resources and strong historical support for moving towards aesthetic utopia. Krishan Kumar once pointed out: by definition, all utopias are novels; Unlike historical works, the former deals with the possible world, not the real world. In this sense, they are similar to all forms of imaginary literature. Utopian literature has a long history in the west, and its source can be traced back to Plato's Timeo. At least since Thomas Moore, it has become a consciously used narrative style, and its creation and research are still in the ascendant. Utopia literature is also rich and colorful in China, and Liu Minghua's Dream of Great Harmony and Meng Erdong's Utopia in China Literature have made a preliminary study on it. Moreover, some scholars have directly raised the issue of paying attention to and studying the literariness and aesthetic characteristics of Utopian literature. Although aesthetic utopia and utopia literature can not be simply regarded as a whole, it is obvious that utopia literature has aesthetic characteristics, or is an important manifestation of aesthetic utopia. This actually shows that on the basis of the rich historical resources of Utopia literature, expanding and deepening Utopia research has become an inevitable choice and development trend.
Thirdly, from the current research situation, it is the need to make up for the weak links in utopia research in the past. In recent years, although the issue of aesthetic utopia has aroused great concern in academic circles, some related achievements have come out, providing a growing point for further discussion. But generally speaking, there are more studies on Utopia from sociology, politics, psychology, history, philosophy and culturology, and less on aesthetics. Within the scope of aesthetics and literature and art, there are many local and individual studies, but the overall and comprehensive studies are extremely rare; There are many researches on specific phenomena, but few on theory. As for the "meta-theory" research of aesthetic utopia, there are even fewer. This situation is not commensurate with the actual status and influence of aesthetic utopia, and it is urgent to give a comprehensive and systematic study in theory.
Finally, from the perspective of ontology, it is determined by its irreplaceable important nature, content, status and value. Aesthetic Utopia is the most important manifestation of Utopia, and it is the emotional image expression and theoretical representation of people's eternal pursuit of perfection. Aesthetic Utopia plays an irreplaceable role in the construction of a beautiful and ideal society, as well as in the appreciation, evaluation, creation and research of beauty. Most of the contents of aesthetic utopia research have not been discussed or systematically explored in academic circles, and many problems are difficult problems to be solved urgently. Therefore, we should comprehensively explore its theoretical origin, multiple foundations, nature and characteristics, morphological types, functional utility, contemporary trends and many other laws, as well as the similarities and differences between China and the West, so as to construct an aesthetic utopia theory that reflects the level of the times and its proper form. Although the study of aesthetic utopia belongs to the basic theoretical research, it has outstanding frontier, foresight and realistic pertinence. It is of great practical value to comprehensively and dialectically understand the theory of Utopia and Aesthetic Utopia, consciously and reasonably play the role of Aesthetic Utopia, activate aesthetic activities, promote aesthetic creation, shape perfect personality, promote the healthy development of contemporary aesthetic culture and build a perfect ideal society.