The Renwen Jingshen Debate : Readings, Re-writings, and Methodological Matters
Type
presentation
Date Issued
2011-06-20
Author(s)
Abstract
In a political atmosphere defined by a crackdown on dissent and far-reaching market reforms, a group of young Shanghai scholars pointed at the ills they saw affecting the Chinese humanist field: the desertion within its ranks to lucrative business opportunities; a deficit of ethically-informed critical thinking; and a self-indulgent, ‘nihilist' distortion of foreign critical theory. Rapidly, the debate expanded nationwide, provoking a range of responses in the literary and academic world. Based on the first analytical study of a large corpus of articles from the ‘debate on the spirit of the humanities' (renwen jingshen taolun), the present paper offers an original interpretation of its topic and relevance for contemporaneous intellectual politics. Unlike existing Chinese and Western analyses, it rejects a faction-based portrayal. It points instead at the participants' shared assumptions on social change, and to their widely diversified viewpoints on the nature of the humanist enterprise, especially in relation to the nation and the state. Furthermore, it discusses open methodological issues connected with researching intellectual debates, and this debate in particular. The paper reviews the readings of the debate in the literature, arguing that a peculiar definition of humanista (wenren) given by the participants is what accounts for the diverse sociological and literary takes on the discussion. It also critically examines a selection of recent ‘memoirs' on, and rewritings of the debate by the intellectuals who took part in it. Drawing on Ruth Wodak's discourse-historical approach and a text-centred concept of contextualisation, this paper sheds new light on the intellectuals��� attitude toward market reforms and socio-cultural change in post-reform China.
Language
English
Keywords
Intellectuals
China
1990s
keywords
discourse analysis
HSG Classification
contribution to scientific community
Refereed
No
Event Title
Postgraduate Workshop on Culture and the State in Contemporary China
Event Location
University of Oxford
Subject(s)
Division(s)
Eprints ID
215417