Journal paper

Issue No.	Vol.24
Title	Assembled and Its Disbanding: Generational Discourse in the Prose Anthologies of the “Seventh Grade (Post-1980s)”
Author	Chiu, Pi-te
Page	31-54
Abstract	Anthologies are among the most visible expressions of the literary canon and are often seen as both an occasion for presentation and a mechanism for recognition. As a form of “re-creation” within the literary field, anthologies are often shaped by the ideologies or specific intentions of their compilers during the selection process. Generations, as a classification method for understanding human groups and their cultural characteristics, have recently become a common theme in literary anthology compilation. This article discusses the emergence and development of writers from Taiwan’s “Seventh Grade” generation (a term referring to those born in the post-1980s era) and examines the editorial intentions, selection criteria, and generational discourse presented in two prose anthologies: The Prose Golden Classic of Post-1980s (2011) and Our Generation: Post-1980s Writers (2016). Responding to the generational discourse in these works, this article points out that although “Seventh Grade” writers are grouped and introduced into the literary scene under this label, they do not fully embrace the classification of literary creation or creators by generation. Instead, many writers of this generation adopt a skeptical perspective toward generational labels, with some even advocating for their abolition. Moreover, from the perspective of the literary field and the canon, although this article focuses on the “Seventh Grade” as its subject of discussion, the observations and arguments presented herein are not confined to this particular generation but rather address the broader issue of positioning emerging generations.
Keyword	generation, canon, prose, anthology
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