Ming Dong Gu is Distinguished Professor of Foreign Studies at Shenzhen University, China, and Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Texas at Dallas, USA. His recent books include Why Traditional Chinese Philosophy Still Matters (2018) and Sinologism: An Alternative to Orientalism and Postcolonialism (2013).

1. Introduction: Aesthetic Divide and Vision of Global Aesthetics

Part I Language and Writing

2. Writing System and Linguistic Controversy

3. Reconceptualizing the Linguistic Divide

Part II Metaphor and Poetics

4. Chinese and Western Conceptions of Metaphor

5. Metaphor as Signs: Bi-Xing and Metaphor/Metonymy

Part III Mimesis and Representation

7. Western Mimeticism and Chinese Mimetic Theory

Part IV Metaphysics and Aesthetics

8. Divine Thinking and Artistic Creation

9. Lyricism and Mimeticism in Aesthetic Thought

10. Conclusion: Toward World Criticism and Global Aesthetics