A History of Modern Chinese Cultural and Political Thought

This course provides a historical survey of major themes and debates in cultural and intellectual circles in modern China, from the quest for “national rejuvenation” in the late Qing era, to the debates about neoliberalism in the post-Mao period. It attempts to (1) address cultural and historical background for understanding the tradition of Chinese political thought; (2) an immanent reconstruction of major texts and argument of this tradition. The chief focus of our attention will be the question of how Chinese intellectuals coped with the dilemma of “revolution versus enlightenment” throughout China’s long twentieth-century. The primary examples that we will examine include: late Qing Confucianism, the May Fourth enlightenment, anarchism, feminism, cultural conservatism, Maoism, reformist socialist thought, neoliberalism, New Left, and nationalism.

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