The doctoral thesis defense of literature and art studies at Shanghai Normal University has successfully concluded – Lin Jiafeng’s “Research on Bie-modernist Aestheticology” received high praise and was unanimously approved.

On the morning of May 17, 2025, the doctoral dissertation defense of Lin Jiafeng, a 2021-level doctoral student majoring in Literary Studies at the School of Humanities of Shanghai Normal University, was held in Room 1200 of Wen Yuan Building. This defense meeting was chaired by Professor Lu Yang from Fudan University. The defense committee was composed of Professor Yao Jinxi from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Professor Ren Huaixu from Shanghai University, Professor Chen Wei from Shanghai Normal University, and Professor Li Dan from Shanghai Normal University. Professor Wang Jianzhang, the founder of Bie-modernist theory, also participated in the defense meeting throughout.

This doctoral dissertation, titled “Research on BBie-Modernist Aestheticology”, focuses on beyond modernist aesthetics and conducts a systematic study from both theoretical construction and practical perspectives. The dissertation innovatively analyzes and constructs Bie-modernist aestheticology from four dimensions: basic concepts and theoretical development, theoretical connotations, category system, and practical perspectives. The first two parts lay the theoretical foundation for the research, while the latter two expand its theoretical depth and practical value, making the theoretical system of Bie-modernist aestheticology more complete. During the defense, the defendee elaborated on the research framework, theoretical innovation, and academic contributions of the dissertation. The experts of the defense committee unanimously agreed that this dissertation is based on the academic consciousness of constructing local aesthetic theories in China, takes the “Bie-Modernist Aestheticology” as the research object, and through a combination of philosophical speculation and practical analysis, systematically explains the basic concepts, theoretical connotations, category system, and practical value of beyond modernist aesthetics, demonstrating a distinct academic innovation consciousness and theoretical construction ability. The dissertation is based on the complexity of the social and cultural transformation period in China, proposes “Bie-Modern” as a theoretical category with temporal discontinuity and spatial mixture, constructs an interpretive framework covering ontology, epistemology, and practice theory, providing a new perspective and method for Chinese aesthetics research. It is the first to incorporate the “Bie-Modernist Aestheticology” theory into systematic aesthetic research, through category refinement and paradigm construction, attempting to construct an internally logical system of Bie- modernist aestheticology, and is at the forefront of international and domestic research in some aspects of category refinement and argumentation. Overall, the viewpoints and perspectives of this dissertation are innovative, the thinking is clear, the argumentation is orderly, the structure is reasonable, the materials are detailed, the expression is fluent, and it is an excellent doctoral dissertation. From this, it can be seen that the author of the dissertation has a solid professional foundation, strong scientific research ability, and demonstrates the author’s independent academic ability and theoretical potential in conducting scientific research. The experts highly praised the dissertation and proposed valuable suggestions for future research directions.