Cosmopolitanism, Nationalism, and Individualism in Modern China

The Chenbao Fukan and the New Culture Era, 19181928

By (author) Xiaoqun Xu

Not available to order

Publication date:

23 May 2014

Length of book:

308 pages

Publisher

Lexington Books

ISBN-13: 9780739189153

Cosmopolitanism, Nationalism, and Individualism in Modern China analyzes important aspects of Chinese intellectual life and cultural practices that formed and informed the historical phenomenon known as the New Culture era. Through examining an influential newspaper supplement published in Beijing during 1918–1928, along with other contemporary sources, the book explores the full dimensions and rich textures of the intellectual-literary discourses of the time period and contributes to a re-consideration and re-appreciation of the New Culture phenomenon in modern China. It highlights a key intellectual-moral paradox in Chinese discourses between cosmopolitanism as an idealistic aspiration and nationalism as a practical imperative, both in complex relationship to individualism, a paradox that ultimately speaks to the constant negotiations between Chinese tradition and Western culture in the making of Chinese modernity. These issues have remained vitally relevant to China and the world nearly a century later.

Chenbao Fukan's Editorial Policies
Chapter 2: Cosmopolitanism and Nationalism: Chinese Responses to Russell, Eroshenko, and Tagore
Chapter 3: Individual Cosmopolitans and Cultural Capital: Debates on Translation Practices
Chapter 4: Placing China in the World of Colonial Hierarchy: Chinese Travelogues in the 1920s
Chapter 5: Cultural Legacy and Scientific Methods: Reorganizing National Heritage
Chapter 6: Life, Love, and Nation: Intellectual and Moral Sensibilities of Educated Chinese

This is a good book, a very good book and a solidly researched one. Through meticulous scholarship Xiaoqun Xu has provided us with an invaluable survey of the Chenbao fukan of the Republican era in China and, at the same time, laid a sound historical basis from which to contemplate cosmopolitanism, nationalism, and individualism in China today. It was a pleasure to read and will make a significant contribution to the study of China in the early twentieth century.