Description
Book SynopsisChinese Visions of Progress, 1895 to 1949 offers a panoramic view of reflections on progress in modern China. Since the turn of the twentieth century, the discourses on progress shape Chinese understandings of modernity and its pitfalls. As this in-depth study shows, these discourses play a pivotal role in the fields of politics, society, culture, as well as philosophy, history, and literature. It is therefore no exaggeration to say that the Chinese ideas of progress, their often highly optimistic implications, but also the criticism of modernity they offered, opened the gateway for reflections on China’s past, its position in the present world, and its future course.
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments List of Contributors Introduction: Progress, History, and Time in Chinese Discourses after the 1890s Thomas Fröhlich Part 1: Initial Conceptual Encounters 1 The Chinese Concept of “Progress” Kai Vogelsang 2 The Progress of Civilization and Confucianism in Modern East Asia: Fukuzawa Yukichi and Different Forms of Enlightenment Takahiro Nakajima Part 2: Tides of Optimism 3 The Idea of Progress in Modern China: the Case of Yan Fu Li Qiang 4 Prospect Optimism in Modern China: the Formation of a Political Paradigm Thomas Fröhlich 5 An Anatomy of the Utopian Impulse in Modern Chinese Political Thought, 1890–1940 Peter Zarrow 6 The Optimism of Cultural Construction in the 1930s: Wholesale Westernization, Cultural Unit Theory, and Cultural Construction on a Chinese Base Leigh Jenco 7 Fantasizing Science: the Idea of Progress in Early Chinese Science Fiction (1905–1920) Rui Kunze Part 2: Margins of Skepticism 8 Critiques of Progress: Reflections on Chinese Conservatism Axel Schneider 9 Playing the Same Old Tricks: Lu Xun’s Reflections on Modernity in His Essay “Modern History” Susanne Weigelin-Schwiedrzik Index
