Children read at a library in Shunyi District, Beijing, on Aug. 22. Photo: Fang Ke/CSST

It is essential to critically clarify the nuanced but deep relationship between Chinese children’s literature and modern and contemporary literature, thereby scientifically advancing the disciplinary institutionalization of this field for establishing the knowledge domain of Chinese children’s literature and identifying its epistemological foundations and methodologies. At the same time, it’s vital to maintain the disciplinary identity of Chinese children’s literature while integrating insights from other fields in the shift from strict disciplinary boundaries to interdisciplinary engagement. This approach will allow the discipline to contribute meaningfully to the broader project of knowledge production and dissemination in the century-long tradition of modern Chinese literature.

From ‘concept’ to ‘knowledge’

As a modern concept, the emergence of “children” and “children’s literature” highlights a conscious detachment from classical knowledge systems, leading to a formal and conceptualized transition between axiology and epistemology. The modern discipline of Chinese children’s literature is driven by our conceptual understanding of “children.” The acquisition of modern knowledge in Chinese children’s literature is driven by the value attributed to “children.” The discovery of “children” has endowed children’s literature with its significance. Chinese new literature established a modern knowledge system distinct from ancient literature, with its core being the humanities, thus distancing itself from pre-modern knowledge forms established by ancient literature, which emphasized the relationship between heaven and man and blurred the boundaries between subject and object.

As a branch of new literature, Chinese children’s literature focuses on the subjectivity and modernity of children, primarily reflecting the three key points of “China,” “children,” and “literature.” Each of these aspects is imbued with qualities of modernity, and the various forces that converge around them shape children’s literature in historicization, deeply influencing the modern knowledge production within this field.

Chinese children’s literature requires the establishment of a literary knowledge framework to facilitate its transformation from a “modern concept” into “modern knowledge.” Just as new and old knowledge must be measured through the yardstick of history, examining the nature of knowledge in Chinese children’s literature requires a sophisticated understanding of the historical construction of Chinese children’s literature. A rational approach is to return to the historical context and systematically uncover the history of the “institutionalization” of Chinese children’s literature from a genealogical perspective. This investigation into origins can be approached in two main ways. One is to observe the modern transformation of Chinese literature within the context of social changes in China; the other is to deduce the modern emergence of children’s literature from the context of Chinese literature’s transformation.

To truly illuminate the historicized context of Chinese society from an internal perspective, is essential to closely adhere to the intrinsic attributes of children’s literature while approaching its setting from the outside in.

Moreover, it is necessary to further explore how Chinese children’s literature, as a form of modern knowledge, has been produced, following the clarification of its modern emergence. However, the complexity of this issue lies in specifically how this body of knowledge reflects the underlying cultural mechanisms of modern China, how it highlights the imprints of intellectual and spiritual evolution in the subjects who appropriate and transform this knowledge, and how Chinese children’s literature participates in the construction of the modern Chinese knowledge system through the production of modern knowledge.

It is therefore necessary to return to the dynamic social context in which a century of Chinese children’s literature knowledge exists and to gain insight into the complex relationship between knowledge and ideology in order to explore its nature. Over the past century, the theoretical system for Chinese children’s literature gradually incorporated the modern discourse of national imagination, so that the value orientation of its knowledge system became more closely aligned with the society, history, and life of modern China. Instead of detaching from society, Chinese children’s literature becomes a mirror for reflecting on China.

New knowledge framework

It is necessary to both integrate Chinese children’s literature into history and construct new concepts and paradigms of children’s literature by incorporating “tradition” into the “modern” knowledge system, ultimately “reconstructing” a new tradition. The concept of “children’s literature” in China has evolved from a superficial and singular understanding to a deeper and more diverse one. “The literature of humanity” played a fundamental theoretical role in the emergence of “children’s literature.”

The construction of the knowledge system of Chinese children’s literature demonstrates a reflective quality. On the surface, the reflection manifests as a knowledge-based inquiry into “what children are” and “what children’s literature is.” In essence, it signifies that individuals view themselves as objects, thereby transcending the narrow perspectives of traditional epistemology. Chinese children’s literature is endowed with more reflective rather than empirical meanings in this structure, where human subjectivity and self-objectification are homologous. However, new literature itself, as a source, cannot directly confirm the identity of children’s literature. The disciplinary knowledge of children’s literature must be revealed from within, gradually defining its core identity to untangle the pathways and methods for constructing its knowledge system.

The “child-orientation approach” is a form of modern knowledge and a method for confirming the identity of children’s literature. As a Chinese adaptation of John Dewey’s “child-centered education,” it has gained widespread acceptance due to its alignment with the new cultural critique of outdated views on children. However, the concept underwent a transformation when it intervened in the development of Chinese children’s literature. The child-centered principles from the field of education were redirected towards the humanities, with reflections on education and critiques of societal norms evolving into criticisms of adult-centered perspectives. This gave rise to the knowledge reference framework of children/adults and children’s literature/adult literature.

Examining the construction of the concept of Chinese children’s literature within texts and contexts requires attention to both its diachronic evolution and synchronic relationships. The generation of this concept reflects modern thought and the development of new literature. It is worth mentioning that the recapitulation theory, closely related to the “child-orientation approach,” has also influenced the disciplinary boundaries of Chinese children’s literature. In brief, “recapitulation theory” posits that the social development of an individual mirrors the evolutionary history of the species, a concept widely used in cultural anthropology.

In the field of children’s literature, the Chinese adaptation of recapitulation theory does not obscure the humanistic tradition of new literature; rather, it establishes three conceptual categories based on the “discovery” of children: primitive human/primitive literature, adults/adult literature, and children/children’s literature.

Within the knowledge structure of “recapitulation theory,” children’s literature is not only an object of colonization but also plays a role in aiding the colonization of children. Hidden within children’s literature is the adult’s desire for children to become what adults wish them to be, which provides the basis for the theory that “children’s literature is literature for educating children.”

The concepts of children’s literature produced by “child-centered theory” and “recapitulation theory” follow a descriptive logic, creating a narrow, one-sided criterion of literature for “children only” and leading the field into the mire of self-essentialism. This approach, while establishing disciplinary knowledge, also disregards interdisciplinary interactions.

In essence, defining the concept of children’s literature requires moving beyond a self-enclosed discourse system and critically reflecting on children’s literature within the broader vision of knowledge system construction. In fact, children’s literature includes a structure and relationships; it inherently includes the generational structure of children and adults. The separation between adult writers and child readers creates a dual-logical foundation for children’s literature, and the knowledge system drawing from “two generations” of children and adults breaks through the absolutism of “children only” or “adults only.” When this intergenerational communication meets a dynamic knowledge field, the knowledge production of Chinese children’s literature is endowed with more diverse perspectives and value judgments.

‘Disciplinary division’

The evolution from acquiring knowledge to constructing a knowledge system represents a clear trend in the development of the sociology of knowledge, modern themes of which include the objectification, formalization, and disciplinarization of scientific knowledge. Therefore, once the concept of children’s literature emerged in modern Chinese society, it was no longer detached from its social context, but instead required intellectual construction within a historicized context.

Constructing this knowledge system involves using children’s literature—its authors, works, phenomena, trends, and schools of thought—as case studies. Through a series of comprehensive analyses, it seeks to uncover the principles and characteristics of children’s literature, while also identifying “what Chinese children’s literature is.” The construction of the discipline of Chinese children’s literature stems from people’s understanding and reflection on the conceptual subject within a historical context. Therefore, it is not purely subjective knowledge cognition, but rather a form of logical reasoning and theoretical inquiry that approaches objectivity.

At the same time, as it evolved, the relative stability of the knowledge system of Chinese children’s literature has led to the formation of categories, terms, and concepts that point to the core of children’s literature. The establishment of objective, formalized knowledge lays the foundation for the disciplinarization of knowledge.

A major challenge facing the disciplinary division of Chinese children’s literature is its shared origin and homogeneity with modern literature. This connection binds the two together from the beginning, forming a relationship of unity and wholeness. Establishing the disciplinary boundaries of children’s literature requires going through steps of first integration and then subjectivity. Chinese children’s literature shares the “recent tradition” of new literature with modern literature. Both have gained access to modern resources that are difficult to obtain from the “distant tradition,” profoundly engaging in the modernization of thought, language, and humanity.

In fact, the more the integration between children’s literature and new literature is reinforced, the harder it becomes to distinguish between the two, making it increasingly difficult to establish children’s literature as a separate discipline. It is therefore essential to identify the “children’s” characteristics to configure the “literary” knowledge genealogy and to establish children’s literature as a specialized field in order to distinguish it from new literature.

The modern knowledge system for Chinese children’s literature was constructed within the dynamic context of modern China. It is both influenced by modern Chinese thought and, with its distinct knowledge form and literary style, has been integrated into the construction of a century of Chinese intellectual and cultural development. This means that literary knowledge is the origin of the discourse on Chinese children’s literature. It can generate sub-knowledge in both the ideological and linguistic dimensions through the production and reproduction of existing knowledge, thereby providing modern resources for the construction of the knowledge system of Chinese children’s literature.

It is especially worth noting that the communication between the “two generations” contained within children’s literature is a form of intergenerational boundary-crossing. Integration of this complex intergenerational discourse into the construction of the children’s literature knowledge system remains a significant challenge for China’s academic community. Since Chinese children’s literature has not yet developed a systemic and complete knowledge framework, its pursuit of disciplinary autonomy still requires drawing knowledge foundations from other disciplines. Therefore, in the “knowledge wars,” it is essential to uphold the subjectivity of Chinese children’s literature. However, this “unfinished” state continually stimulates awareness of interdisciplinary communication, which in turn contributes to the construction of an autonomous knowledge system for Chinese children’s literature.

Wu Xiangyu is a professor from the College of Humanities at Zhejiang Normal University.