say a few words about

Ethnic criticism originated from the late 1960s American civil rights movement, focusing on the study of literature from the four major ethnic groups in the United States, including Native Americans, African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians. It is both a literary theory and a critical school, aimed at extracting and interpreting the common characteristics and universal laws of ethnic literature, and developing systematic models to provide tools for the study of ethnic literature. Although ethnic criticism is an important literary theory and critical genre, fundamental issues such as conceptual definition, viewpoint interpretation, and method description have not yet been resolved. This article will explore the core concepts and main characteristics of ethnic criticism, in order to systematically grasp this genre.

review

Ethnic criticism, as an important branch of literature, originated from the American civil rights movement and is closely related to the 1968 civil rights movement. San Francisco State University and UC Berkeley respectively established the first Institute of Ethnic Studies and the first Department of Ethnic Studies in the United States. The development of ethnic criticism has gone through three stages: exclusion and construction stage, absorption and reference stage, and reflection and reconstruction stage. In the stage of exclusion and construction, ethnic criticism resists mainstream literary discourse and highlights ethnic identity through the excavation and discovery of works by ethnic writers, as well as the promotion and construction of ethnic culture and literary theory. In the stage of absorption and reference, ethnic critics begin to break free from the binary thinking of ethnicity/mainstream, explore and draw on various contemporary literary theories, and propose their own theories based on this foundation. The reflection and reconstruction stage mainly manifests as a re examination of contemporary Western mainstream literary theory and critical discourse, as well as the proposal of new literary theories or critical propositions.

conclusion

Ethnic criticism, as a literary theory and critical school, has expanded its research focus from American ethnic literature to a global scale, alongside postcolonialism and new historicism. Since the publication of the "Methods of Ethnic Literature Criticism in the United States" series, research methods in ethnic literature have been promoted, and new topics such as the development of science fiction and speculative novels have linked ethnic identity with technological and cultural practices. However, ethnic criticism has limitations, such as the emphasis on ethnic individuality that may make it difficult to integrate into mainstream literary theory, as well as an imbalance between content criticism and formal criticism. However, with the deepening of research, ethnic criticism is expected to overcome these drawbacks and continue to play an important role in contemporary literary theory and criticism.