The Intellectual's Writing Involved In The Public Sphere

As one of Taiwan's most influential classic works, "Wildfire", the fame-establishing masterpiece of Long Yingtai, has been still affecting China's mainland since its first publication twenty years ago, and nowadays Long Yingtai's articles are often published in Chinese newspapers and magazines simultaneously on China's mainland, in Hong Kong and Macau and in Taiwan, as well as in some other regions across the world. It's more than twenty years from the publication of "Wildfire " to that of "Taiwan's Future,1.3 Dollars?---Four Questions for Presidential Candidates", which was published during the 2008 Taiwan presidential election, and Long Yingtai has always adhere to the intellectual quality of " For the sake of the Nature and the Humans". With a strong sense of social responsibility, concern for public affairs and an independent critical spirit, her writing gets involved in the public sphere and triggers strong ideological storms time and again, creating constant publication myths and amazing effects. Aseries of literary events relating to his writing have constituted a unique "cultural phenomenon", and her articles have become rare archives within the cultural circle in Europe, on China's mainland, in Hong Kong and Macau and in Taiwan. Therefore, this paper takes the phenomenon as a study object for the specific analysis and discussion.With the use of Habermas's theory of "Public Sphere" and Said's "Representations of the Intellectual and some other theoretical resources of cultural studies, this paper studies Long Yingtai's cultural phenomenon from the perspective of the intellectual's writing involved in the public sphere and conducts analysis and discussion respectively from the aspects of author identity, literary practice, reader response and literary production.Being a public intellectual with liberal thoughts, Long Yingtai mainly inherits the Chinese intellectuals' spiritual tradition of" Every citizen is responsible for the fate of the nation." as his spiritual gesture, and his ideological identity is closely linked with the Western liberal thought. Her creative writing may be the way of the practice for her (?)beral ideas, and she has been always caring for public affairs, directly facing (?) immediate context, getting involved in the public sphere and voicing from the position of the liberty. Focusing on the sensitive issues and sharp contradictory conflicts of social reality and with its pungent and sharp stroke, her subjects analyse or expose and criticize, which touches the hearts of the readers and gives rise to one ideological storm after another. Due to the sensational effects and critical wonders, Long Yingtai's creative writing has formed a unique cultural phenomenon, with "Wildfire Phenomenon", "Singapore Disturbance", "Shanghai Men Event" and "Wild Fire Recurring" regarding the great cultural debate at the beginning of the 21st century constituting several debates of Long Yingtai's ideological storms, showing the diverse and complex thinking of the readers and the spiritual anxiety of the society and indicating the the formation of a Chinese public forum as well. In today's media context, the media functions have become the fifth element of literary activities, and the media planning and dissemination has also played a role in fueling Long Yingtai's cultural sensational effects.This paper mainly adopts a combination of internal studies and external studies, that is, internal studies (text study) explore the subject focus and text poetry, while external studies include the social context, literary production, media dissemination, as well as reader response. Besides, cultural studies are combined with text reading in details, namely, by way of the "Cultural Poetics" studies and by combining history with poetry and cultural theory with text reading in details, this paper explores Long Yingtai's cultural phenomenon from the interaction of such five dimensions as the world, the author, works, readers and the media.