This course aims to investigate modern Chinese literary thought by examining a range of writings, debates, and provocations from the 1910s to the 1960s. The course will guide students to read criticism by figures such as Liang Qichao, Lu Xun, and Wang Guowei; it also calls attention to writings that are less associated with literary criticism, such as those by Zhang Taiyan, Chen Yinke, and Li Zehou. Above all, The course seeks to examine the linkages between these critical discourses with both premodern Chinese literary thought and Western intellectual traditions.