Description
Book SynopsisOpening a new window into Chinese intellectual discourse, this unique book is a critical engagement with the issues, problems, and meanings of contemporary Chinese intellectual thought. As key participants in these debates who have exercised a significant influence on the development of contemporary Chinese thought, the volume''s contributors explore concerns over the role of the intellectual and the outcomes of knowledge production in the humanities. Masterfully translated, these essays provide a wide range of conflicting perspectives on contemporary Chinese intellectuality, yet they share in common the belief held by many Chinese intellectuals in the power of intellectual labor to shape and change social life. By showing how Western social and cultural theory as well as the May Fourth and pre-modern Confucian traditions are being adapted for contemporary Chinese intellectual use, the book highlights how Chinese academics have affirmed an independent critical role for themselves in post-Mao China and the scope of the knowledge industry that they have created and developed since 1979.
Trade Review[Voicing Concern] raises large and important theoretical issues concerning and concerned with cultural and intellectual production. It is an engaging read and this significant collection will be of great value to scholars of modern China. * Journal of Asian Studies *
A welcome addition to the growing corpus of translations from contemporary Chinese discussions of culture and society. The volume should be useful not only to cultural studies scholars but for teaching purposes. * Asian Studies Review *
Allows readers, in this era of economic globalization, access to some of the dimensions of current worldwide intellectual debates as they get played out in China. * The China Journal *
This collection of translations represents a valiant attempt to help Western readers peek into China's diverse, if not confusing, intellectual life during the 1990s. Unlike the preceding decade, the 1990s have not yet attracted much scholarly attention in the West. * CHOICE *
Table of ContentsChapter 1 Introduction Chapter 2 The Self-Made Maps of Chinese Intellectuality Chapter 3 The Topography of Intellectual Culture in 1990s Mainland China: A Survey Chapter 4 The Popular Cultural Movement of the 1980s Chapter 5 Revisiting the Perils of "Designer Pidgin Scholarship" Chapter 6 On Western Literary Theory in China Chapter 7 Some Reflections on New Confucianism in Mainland Chinese Culture of the 1990s Chapter 8 On Scientism and Social Theory in Modern Chinese Thought Chapter 9 Interpreting Modern Chinese History through the Theory of Ultra-Stable Systems Chapter 10 Patriotism versus Intellectual Curiosity: Jin Guantao's Approach to Chinese History Chapter 11 In Search of a "Third Way": A Conversation regarding "Liberalism" and the "New Left Wing" Chapter 12 Time's Arrows: Imaginative Pasts and Nostalgic Futures
