Engaging 'China': Perspectives from the Margins

Panel 1: Visualising Landscapes 

Moderator: Gordon Barrett

​

‘Land Beyond the Sea’ in Qing China: Visualising Frontier Politics, Race and Colonisation through Battle-prints from the Qianlong Reign 

Vaishnavi Patil - Yenching Academy, Peking University 

​

The proposed research paper aims to examine and understand history through the mass mediated visual cultural practices during the Qianlong reign. The prints discussed here are the Taiwan (Formosa) Campaign [平定台湾图] set, which contains 12 prints, each describing an event in the conflict of Taiwan during the Qianlong reign. Qianlong documented his conquests with the production of such prints (图说), which were a device used for political purposes in the Qing dynasty. For the Qing, the visual representation of frontiers was bound with the assertion of imperial power on both the practical and the symbolic levels. Thus, these prints could be considered as evidence of how the Qing dealt with Taiwan, and how these prints inform our understanding of the Taiwan frontiers. The Qing vision of the imperial enterprise - mainly under Qianlong’s reign - was a conglomerate of five major peoples. Where do the indigenous people of Taiwan (and other indigenous peoples of Southern China) fit into the empire? How was race and ethnicity portrayed in the visual materials of the period? The Qing expansionism during the Kangxi-Qianlong reigns led to China being refashioned as a multiethnic realm, shifting the traditional order between the Chinese (hua) and the barbarians (yi) to make it one whole country. Can we use colonial discourse theory to identify and elucidate relations of power and cultural dominance that pervaded Qing constructions of Taiwan? Thus, the proposed paper aims to analyze the Taiwan Campaign prints and to understand questions on frontier politics, race, and colonization. 

​

Showcasing the Other: Images of Tibet in Chinese Travel Guidebooks

Emmelie Korell - Freie Universität Berlin 

​

Accompanying the surge of tourist arrivals to Lhasa and Tibet following the opening of the Qingzang Railway in 2007, Chinese language tourist guidebooks on Tibet multiplied. The books (and returning tourists) generally produce positive, if (self-)orientalist images of the restive province (Gan, Lu and Wang 2013), which contrast the negative images of Tibet from previous decades sharply. This study aims to look at the images of Tibet the travel guidebooks produce and discuss them as products and possible 'myths' of China’s historical and political discourse on Tibet. In order to outline an answer I study how guidebooks present Tibet’s history, religion, culture, inhabitants, as well as whether the guidebooks address the Tibet questions, and what type of illustrations they use. Next, I discuss the images in the context of Chinese Popular Culture and popular images of Tibet created in other media (i.e. cinema, news). This discussion then will illuminate how the image of Tibet created for Chinese tourists nowadays diverges from the Tibet of the 1950s propaganda. Chinese tourism to Tibet has received generous academic interest (Kolas 2008, Nyiri 2003, Shepherd 2006, etc.) while Chinese travel guidebooks have received limited attention (Zhao 2008, Ma 2011 & 2014, Zhang 2016). Similarly, Yu (2015), Shen (2010 & 2015), Herberer (2001), Smith (2008) and numerous others have studied the image of Tibet in China, and even more researchers have looked at the image of Tibet produced abroad, primarily Hollywood. The 'mythologisation' of Tibet in Western productions is well-known at this point, and as the images of Tibet in China and the West converge within the tourism framework, the possibility of a Chinese 'Tibet myth' emerges. 

​

Perception of Landscapes at Borders: The Case of Ningxia in the Ming Period

Ting-chih Wu - University of Pennsylvania 

 

During the Ming period, Ningxia became an important defensive region along the borders of the Ming dynasty. As a result, Ningxia appeared on many officials’ and literati’s horizons. Reflecting on their activities in Ningxia, officials and literati created the ‘eight scenes’ in Ningxia. Some literary works, such as poetic works, anecdotes, and gazetteer records, made reference to these landscapes at this border region. Through the examination of these textual records of the eight scenes, this paper shows the perception of landscapes in the Ming period. The eight scenes recalled these officials’ and literati’s past memories in China’s hinterlands. Based on their memories, these literary works related to landscapes at the borders displayed human interactions with nature within the Chinese cultural framework. Their literary works might show some departure from actual landscapes at the borders. The departure lay in the conflict between the images of China and the actual landscapes at borders. The conflict also showed human emotional engagement with landscapes under specific circumstances. This paper argues that by creating the descriptions of border landscapes, these officials and literati built the imaginary connection between borders and China’s hinterlands. By engaging Chinese people’s perception of landscapes at the borders, we can understand how ‘China’ was conceived at that time.

​

Redefining 'Beauty': Travel Culture in the Cities of Socialist China, 1949-1958

Bocheng Pan - National Chiao Tung University 

​

This paper explores the transformation of travel culture in the cities of socialist China from 1949 to the late-1950s. By examining articles and visual materials from China Traveler (1949-1954) and its successor Travelers (1954-1960), as well as tour guides and similar pamphlets published in major cities, this study traces how the 'New China' reshaped the concept and social practices of travel culture among the ordinary people in socialist cities, and how the common people conceived of travel culture in reality. Redefinition of the landscape, particularly the beauty of the landscape was an essential step in this project, and the negotiation or even contradiction between the new regime and ordinary citizens could emerge from this project. It was not only intertwined with the context of travel culture in the Republican period but also influenced by the Soviet Union. By discovering new landscapes that were not previously considered landscapes, such as factories, forest, and streets, and redefining existing landscapes by reinventing their tradition or allocating new significance to them, an alternative category was established and represented in different sorts of media. A model of the beauty of landscapes was established, and it might have provided guidance to ordinary people about where to travel and how to view the beauty in the 'correct' perspective. By juxtaposing the post-1949 landscape building project and travel culture with that of the Republican period, this paper indicates that, before and after 1949, these two regimes shared similar mechanisms for building landscapes and reproducing their significance. However, rather than invoke the landscape and tourism to shape the legality for Nationalist regime, the Chinese Communist Party paid more attention to the motivation of legitimacy in travel culture and beauty redefinition, which was related to the new urban policy: “transform the consumer cities into productive ones.” 

 

Panel 2: The China Dream

 Moderator: Annie Hongping Nie

​

汉王朝政治实践与地域认同变化 

Han Dynasty Political Practices and Regional Identity Changes

邵良 - 人民大学  

Shao Liang - Renmin University 

​

几千年来中国历史上政治局面分裂之后总能恢复统一的原因, 或许可以从其他难以实 现政治统一的国家所面临的困难进行寻找。例如，“认同 性”危机及其对应物在中国历史中的处境。本文从政治史入手，以统计和个案分析相结合的方法，考察了秦楚之际与汉魏之交两个乱世中地 域认同 (即针对中华文明内部不同地域的政治认同)对时人政治认同的 影响， 以及二者之间的变化，还有变化产生的原因和意义。研究结果显示，秦楚之际地域认同在当时政治认同中影响很大，对时人政治认同起到决定性的支配作用。而汉魏之交地域认同在政治认同中的影响比秦楚之际下降很多，不再对时人政治认同起到决定性的支配作用，政治文化中出现了普遍的跨地域政治认同。其结果就是政治文化由抵制政治统一变为不排斥政治统一，让国家分裂以后再次统一成为了大概率事件。这种变化发生的原因，一是机缘巧合下诞生的跨地域政治团体即刘邦集团，于局部地区塑造了跨地域政治认同; 二是汉王朝的属吏辟除制度和籍贯回避制度将跨地域政治认同扩展到全国。跨地域政治认同的影响横向扩展到全社会，塑造机制纵向传承至后世，也就让中国不排斥统一政权的政治文化普及并长期延续下去。 

​

The reasons for the repeated restorations of unity after political divisions in Chinese history may be sought in the difficulties faced by other countries to achieve political cohesion, for example, the “identity” crisis and its counterparts in Chinese history. This paper starts from the history of politics with statistical analysis and case study methods to explore the influence of regional identity (political identity of different regions inside Chinese state) on the political identity during turbulent times in the Qin and Han dynasties, and the changes between the two, and the reasons and significance of the changes. The result shows that (1) regional identity during the turn of the Qin and Han dynasties influenced greatly the political identity at that time, which was a decisive factor in political identity; (2) the influence of regional identity at the turn of the Han and Wei dynasties was much lower than that of the Qin and Han and that regional identity was no longer a decisive factor of political identity; and (3) there has been a widespread cross-regional political identity in political culture. As a result, the political culture from the suspension of political unity does not exclude political unity, so that reunifications of the country after divisions become highly probable events. The first reason for this change is that a cross-regional political group, the Liu Bang Group, which was born coincidentally, had established cross-regional political identity in a local area. The second is that the affiliated staff selection (属吏辟除) system and the hometown avoidance (籍贯回避) system of the Han Dynasty made cross-regional political identity extend throughout the whole country. The influence and creation mechanism of cross-regional political identity affected the entire society and future generations, so that political cultures which did not exclude political unity were indeed popularized and inherited. 

​

論重現於域外漢籍中的中國地方文人生平 ——兼論中韓文人之交與互視的研究路徑

Revisiting Chinese Local Scholars Biography in Sinitic Texts: A Discussion on the Interaction between Chinese Local Scholars and Joseon Envoys

林侑毅 - 韓國高麗大學 

Lin Yuyi - Korea University 

​

滿清代明入主中原，東亞周邊諸國遣使入貢，諸國使臣除赴清遂行外交任務，亦積極向清吸收文化、科技新知，蒐集清朝及各國現勢，形成以清為心中的漢文文化圈。儘管周邊諸國在外交地位及文化內涵上與滿清 存在顯著差異，形成看似周邊諸國對清單向接受的現象，然而在年年入貢的朝鮮使臣所撰寫的燕行錄中，多次出現中國地方秀才主動迎接朝鮮使臣，積極與其唱和的反向案例，是清鮮交流中頗值得關注的課題。其中十八世紀末出身榆關的秀才齊佩蓮，自1782年至1803年間，於朝鮮赴燕路程中迎接途經的朝鮮使臣，與其筆談、和詩，共計20次之多，交往的朝鮮文人達28人，如朴齊家、李海應、洪良浩、洪羲俊等，這在帶有文化優越心態的多數中國文人中，實為少見。齊佩蓮深知朝鮮使臣具備深厚的漢文能力且身居朝中要職，有計畫地接觸朝鮮使臣，其背後的 動機為何，與朝鮮使臣的交流賦詩，又是否對齊佩蓮的文學觀帶來一定 影響，同時代是否也存在與齊佩蓮類似的案例，皆是值得探討的課題。 本文將分析清代地方秀才迎朝鮮使臣的背景及其意義，藉以跳脫從中國中心看周邊，以及從周邊看中心大國的侷限，建構中心與周邊互視的研究路徑，開展更廣闊而多元的研究視野。 

​

After the Manchu Qing Dynasty dominated over the Ming, envoys from around East Asian countries were assigned to pay tribute to the new dynasty. They not only conducted diplomatic tasks, but also absorbed Qing Dynasty culture/technology and collected situational information of Qing and surrounding countries. Through this process a new Chinese culture sphere, premised on the Qing dynasty was formed. The phenomenon of the Chinese culture sphere often is presented as a one-way relationship, i.e. from surrounding countries to Qing Dynasty, since the empire had the advantage of diplomacy and culture. However, from the book Yeon-Hang-Rok (燕行錄, Travel Account to Beijing), written by Joseon envoys, cases of the reverse relationship can be seen: Chinese local scholars actively and frequently interacting with Joseon envoys. This kind of interaction is a topic worth exploring. Among those cases, Qi Pei-Lian (齊佩蓮), the scholar born near Yu Pass (榆關) in the late 18th century, interacted with Joseon envoys through conversation by brush talk and chanting poems on the route from Joseon to the Qing empire for about 20 times. The scholar interacted with 28 Joseon scholars, including Bak Je-Ga (朴齊家), Lee Hae-Ung (李海應), and Hong Yang-Ho (洪良浩), which was not common among Chinese literati who retained a sense of cultural superiority. Qi Pei-Lian realized that those Joseon envoys held a solid understanding of Chinese culture as well as critical positions in the Joseon state. Therefore, it is worth asking: what were Qi Pei-Lian's motivation for interacting with them? And to what extent and in what ways is his literary work influenced by the Joseon scholars? In this study, I will analyze the background and meaning for the interaction between Chinese local scholars and Joseon envoys, thereby getting rid of the single way viewpoint. Thus, a broader perspective can be gained by recognising the two-way interaction between 'centre' and 'periphery'. 

​

The First Pan-Global China: New Geographies and New Conceptualizations (1860–1911)

Edwin Black - University of Oxford

​

The newly global China was not only different because of the numbers abroad but because of a transformation in the geographic connectedness of Chinese travellers, and their understanding of this. Formerly, rare travellers would depart and return with information to the imperial metropolis. In the late Qing, scholars and diplomats around the world were directly connected to each other, not through the metropolis in Beijing. They used these connections for mutual aid – e.g. British Foreign Office documents show Chinese in London working on behalf of those in Peru. They also used their new understanding of the globe to lobby for Qing support of Chinese abroad, as diplomatic diaries reveal. Global stages, especially in Southeast Asia and the USA, became sites for debates about republicanism and monarchism. Some thinkers, such as Xue Fucheng and Huang Zunzian, went further to advocate Chinese overseas imperialism, via the promotion of Chinese settlement overseas in colonies. My paper will focus on this particular late Qing vision of China, showing how it was forged by inspiration from historical writings on expansion, the new experiences of Chinese voyagers in a pan-global space that was mostly structured by empires, and above all by the engagement these voyagers had with non-Chinese, especially the Japanese, who debated with them the merits of imperi- alism. By addressing how new geographies and new global engagement affected Chinese thinkers’ conceptualizations of the state, I will describe how it was a new epistemological realm – that of globalization – rather than merely Western–Chinese power dynamics that drove how China was newly conceived. 

​

Rejuvenation through International Cooperation:

Framing the ‘One Belt One Road’ Initiative and China’s New Leadership Role

Alessandra Jonkhout - University of Leiden 

​

On May 14 2017, at the ‘One Belt One Road’ (OBOR) forum, Xi Jinping addressed the world leaders gathered on how the ancient silk road had created bonds between different countries and communities, fostered peace and cooperation between different peoples, and created mutual learning and benefits. The same narrative was also used by domestic media in the numerous online videos, among other mass-media products, on the OBOR initiative. What is striking about these videos is that although the OBOR initiative is clearly an economic policy to generate economic growth, the videos frame the OBOR initiative within the ideological discourse of the ‘Chinese Dream’. The Communist Party of China (CPC) regularly uses mass-media to promote the creation and ensure the reproduction of hegemonic discourses that serve to legitimize CPC rule. As a consequence, the recently released videos deserve closer scrutiny as they can tell us about the current developments within China, as well as what direction China will move towards to in the future. In other words, through analyzing the meanings embedded in the videos it will become clear how the government wants its citizens to understand the OBOR initiative, the government’s role, and the future of China. Therefore, by combining visual discourse analysis with semiotics, I will explore three of the videos released in the wake of the 2017 OBOR forum. In doing so, I will assert that the official media coverage of the OBOR initiative uses the same rhetorical devices found in the ‘China Dream’ discourse to frame the initiative in terms of ‘rejuvenation through international cooperation’ with the aim of enhancing the legitimacy of the CCP. 

​

Panel 3: People Without Histories 

Moderator: Anke Hein

​

Local History Writing Amongst Tibetan Pastoralists in Post-Mao China:

The Case of Bong stag

Tsering Samdrup - University of Oslo 

​

For centuries, history writing in Tibet has tended to focus more on religion than on secular issues, and these histories are most often written by the religious elites. Tibetans in the Northeastern part of the Tibetan plateau, commonly known as Amdowas, have been a 'people without history' for centuries. However, beginning in the 1980s, a new genre of historical writings emerged in Amdo. This paper aims to investigate this genre with a special focus on three different Tibetan and Chinese historical accounts written on Bong stag (a Tibetan tribal alliance located across present-day Them chen [Chi. Tianjun] and Brag dkar [Chi. Xinghai] counties in Qinghai Province since the 1990s. These written historical accounts, based on both literary and oral sources, are mainly about the origins, migration history, and previous leaders of Bong stag as well as social transformations they went through as a tribal alliance. This paper takes a historiographical approach and its central goal is to find out what is expressed in these historical accounts and how and for what purposes. This paper will also contextualise these newly written historical writings by firstly considering the contemporary social and political changes occurring in China as whole, and secondly the changes occurring in this community more specifically. I then situate these historical texts within both previous Amdo historical writings and government-sponsored historical writings of the region to discuss differences as well as similarities in narrative style and purpose. By analysing newly written historical narratives in Amdo, this paper will shed light on the emergence of a new historical consciousness among Amdo pastoralists in post-Mao China.

​

Branding the Nuosu-Yi: Junkies, Living Fossils, and Intellectuals of the Cool Mountains

Jan Karlach - Hong Kong Polytechnic University 

​

The Nuosu-Yi of Liangshan in Southwest China Sichuan Province has a long history of engagement with the center of Chinese Empire, intensifying in the mid-50’s after Liangshan (Cool Mountains) was officially promulgated as fully under control of the newly emerged People’s Republic of China. Since then, with the help of Han-Chinese, foreign and local academics, the Nuosu-Yi carved out their distinct identity. The Nuosu-Yi academics were allowed to write a history deviating from the official Party line, which depicted Nuosu-Yi as the most ancient people not only within China but also the whole human civilization, putting the entire country’s historical record way ahead of Babylon, Egypt, and India. However, branded as one of the most backward nationalities with rampant poverty, HIV/AIDS infection, and heroin addiction, and at the same branded as 'living fossil' through the eulogization of their allegedly ancient practices and way of life, the Nuosu-Yi became vulnerable to all sorts of engagement. This paper aims to depict how the academic, political, and mass media discourses further mostly unintentionally stigmatize the Nuosu-Yi, practically preventing them from seeing themselves as modern in their own way. In search of the distinct and coherent ethnic identity, the Nuosu-Yi intellectuals constructed a hegemonic framework of cultural markers, where the scriptural shamans bimox labeled as 'mountain intellectuals' became central figures responsible for the survival of the Nuosu-Yi indigenity. Such representations are further being replicated by foreign anthropologists, paradoxically accelerating the normalization of the Nuosu-Yi in accordance with the state-driven patterns. 

​

Engaging in the Past: Production of the History of Nanzhao and the Dali Kingdom in Southwestern China, 1500 - 1750

Yuanyuan Duan - Fudan University 

​

The question of how China as a nation as well as a concept came into being has been a controversial issue in recent research. Based on the assumption that how people imagine others can be a screen on which they project themselves, most research has focused on how the Chinese have constructed others. However, is it a one-way street? The production of the history of Nanzhao and the Dali Kingdom from the 16th to the 18th century can illuminate this question. After being conquered by Mongols in the 13th century, the center of the Dali Kingdom became a prefecture of the Yuan dynasty, known as Dali today. The local elites began to transform indigenous oral legends of Nanzhao and the Dali Kingdom’s rulers and evolving Buddhist stories into texts in the Chinese language during the early 16th century. For the officials and literati who came to Dali, increasing contact with the local people aroused their interest in the region’s past. This led to the spread of these texts, and elites devoted themselves to writing histories of the frontier. The local texts were significant sources for their works. Meanwhile, both indigenous residents and outsiders made efforts to fit the legends into the linear framework of Chinese chronology. As these books circulated, the history of Nanzhao and the Dali Kingdom reached a wider range of readership and became historical knowledge shared throughout China. Cultural exchange was important in the production of history of Nanzhao and the Dali Kingdom. Each side tried to enhance understanding of the other’s past and integrated otherness into its own tradition. In this process, those who lived in southwest China were not just waiting passively to be represented passively, but also engaged in the production of history and shaped the way in which their pasts were narrated. 

 

​

Panel 4: Border-crossing Subjectivities 

Moderator: Pamela Hunt

​

美国主流社会眼中的中国大后方抗战电影纪录片 《苦干》— 尝试从影像史学视角的考察

Kukan in the Eyes of American Mainstream Society:

An Investigation from the Historiophoty Perspective

Jingyu Liu - Southwest University 

​

《苦干--中国不可战胜的秘密》是第一部由美国拍摄制作的反映中国抗战历史的彩色电影纪录片、第一部由海外华人策划筹资拍摄的电影纪录片、第一部影响美国援华政策的电影作品，也是唯一一部全景反映中国大后方抗战的历史画卷。1942年美国电影艺术和科学学会授予《苦干》 奥斯卡奖纪录片特别奖，使之成为唯一一部获得奥斯卡奖的反映中国抗战历史的纪录片。但随后便消失于人们的视野中，直到两年前才重新回归中国，引起轰动。本文运用来自美国的第一手史料，从影像史学的视角，第一次重建了《苦干》在美国上映的盛况，分析了美国主流社会对它的评论，展示了《苦干》引发的美国主流社会对中国及其抗日战争的新认识，揭示了海外华人运用舆论力量支持祖国抗战的新壮举。 

​

Kukan: The Secret of Unconquerable China is the first documentary in natural color motion picture, revealing the atrocities of World War II in China to audiences around the world. It is the first documentary film financed and produced by overseas Chinese people during World War II. This first film is the only motion picture film which panoramically reflected China’s rear area’s resistance against Japan, and influenced the United States to adjust its assistance policy towards China after 1941. This is the first ever American feature documentary about World War II in China, to receive an Academy Award in 1942, but has been lost for decades until 2 years ago. It has been rediscovered and returned to China in 2015 as a phenomenon. Since the release of the film in 1941, it has successfully attracted the world to understanding and communicating with China better at the time as the documentary was already a significant cultural signifier for China to better engage with the world. From the perspective of historiophoty, this paper uses historical archives from the United States of America and restores for the first time the unprecedented occasion of the release of this documentary film in USA. The author analyses the reports and critiques received from the American mainstream society during the film’s release demonstrating American mainstream society’s growing awareness towards China and its resistance to Japanese aggression. It also reveals the heroic undertaking of overseas Chinese people utilizing documentary film as a cultural product to form the public opinion in America in support of their homeland’s fight against Japan. 

​

Body and the Border: Karayuki-san in Shanghai during the Early Republican Era

Luan Qinglin - University of Illinois 

​

People cross borders; borders also cross people. Starting from the 1870s, karayuki-san, an Early Republican era term for female Japanese sex workers, broadened their career sites into the global labor market. The identity of karayuki-san was fluid. In the eyes of the Japanese government, karayuki-san were 'the secret voyagers' serving as the mobile agents of Japanese nationality. According to the karayuki-san themselves, however, traveling from Japan to China was more intimate and complex than the Japanese government expected. To them, the boundary between nations was quite blurred, and China was just one of the nearest neighbors and a second home with which they could easily communicate (Zhu 2013; Morisaki 1980). While Japan was confronted by emotional hate during the May Fourth Movement in 1919, karayuki-san as the 'alive Japanese products' were distinctively ignored by the local Chinese people and their customers, who continued admiring the carnal delicacy and bodily aesthetic of the karayuki-san (Hershatter 2010). Traveling between Japan to China, karayuki-san carried a fluid identity. How did karayuki-san actively perform as the network agents of information exchange and influence the image of Chinese modernity and China as a state? In the first part of the paper, I analyze the industrial revolution in Shanghai during the Chinese Early Republican Era. Second, the paper provides an analysis of the everyday life of karayuki-san, and how their social practice was perceived by and interacted with Chinese politicians, the Chinese public, the Japanese government, and karayuki-san themselves. Through analyzing the transnational and fluid identity of karayuki-san, the paper aims to find a way of looking at China’s boarder and Chinese modernity from the identity of karayuki-san and under the context of an emerging global labor market. 

​

Writing Down Our Happiness and Dream:

State, Narrative, and Chinese Deaf Identity in the Making

Zihao Lin - Free University of Berlin and Humboldt University of Berlin

 

Deaf politics in China is usually viewed as an appendage of welfare governance, such as special education and medical assistance (Callaway, 2000). In this paper, however, I extend Kohrman’s (2005) conception of bio-bureaucracy in the case of China Association of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (CADHH), a subordinate organ of China Disabled Persons’ Federation (CDPF), to highlight how this state-sponsored institution not only regulates the redistributive aspect of deaf politics in contemporary China, but also substantially checks the boundary and territory of the Chinese deaf cultural experiences. By analyzing texts produced by Chinese deaf citizens in a CADHH-organized essay contest (征文比赛) in 2015, I explore 1) how deaf subjectivity emerges in contemporary mainland China, 2) how and when subjectivity transforms into collective identity, and 3) through what (textual and discursive) instruments. Drawing references from Foucauldian discourse, poststructural identity theory, and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), I identify several subject positions emergent from the texts that articulate and negotiate the experiences of disability, deaf collectivity, individuality, as well as Chineseness. Deafness, in this sense, is no longer merely a biological or audiological trait, but rather a sort of fluid cultural experience that can be shared, articulated, and contested. The institutionalized self-writing that helps develop these narrative identities, I argue, reflects not only the Chinese hearing-impaired citizens’ ability as knowing subject but also the PRC state’s active reproduction of a specific category of minority since 1988. By discussing Chinese deaf identity and subjectivity in the making, this paper also aims at contributing to the debates of global Deaf universalism (Ladd, 2003), China’s rising statism (Xu, 2011) and new left critique of Chinese post-socialism (Zhang, 2008).  

​

Writing Engagement and Engagement Writing:

Three Overseas Chinese Female Writers’ Literary Practice

Yang Yi - University of Hong Kong 

​

Within global population movements, litterateurs usually use a complex and strategy-oriented way to remember or cut transnational memories, identities, and histories. Overseas Chinese Literature highlights various issues such as tourism and migration from China as well as associated political, social, and cultural issues. In 2016, three new immigrant female writers published their fiction individually. Dr Jiang Lan, also a Chinese teacher at Bard College, wrote A Twins Peony depicting the lives of a traditional Chinese community in New York Manhattan. It shows that some Chinese-Americans, while readily mastering the conventions and rules of Euro-America, also drew on culture of their own to make an oppositional repertoire of signs and meanings. However, Silicon Valley engineer Chen Qian tried to act as a cultural mediator, seeking commonalities while reserving differences. Her book, The Infinite Mirror is a mirror of the situation of Chinese immigrants’ adjustment and assimilation process in America. During sojourn in Belgium, Xie Lingjie wrote a novel named Ketch which sheds new light on dilemmas of nationality, borders, and citizenship. Through the lens of diaspora, she examines some universal subjects, including violence, race, gender, post-colonialism, and cosmopolitanism. There is no question that these three novels created their own unique, non-traditional mode of expression. But in light of this case study, we can get a general view of engaging ‘China’. They all provide a critical examination of various literary articulations of diaspora and the creative construction of memories, identities and cultures in a transnational context. They highlight the diverse ways in which overseas Chinese people combined and transformed resources from previously divergent traditions to express how engagement informs the ways in which ‘China’ is conceived, mapping new directions in research and testing the complexity of transnational lives today. 

​

Panel 5: Collecting and Curating China 

Moderator: Margaret Hillenbrand

​

Collecting Chinese Paintings in Fifteenth-century Central Asia and Iran

Yu Yusen - Heidelberg University 

​

Albums in the Topkapı Palace Museum of Istanbul (Hazine 2152, 2153, 2160; also H. 2154) and the Berlin State Library (MSS. Diez A. Fols. 70-74), compiled in different historical contexts, preserve a considerable number of China-related paintings and drawings, be it either the authentic works executed by Chinese painters, or Persian copies, later ascribed as “work of the Masters of Cathay” or “work of Cathay”. Despite a growing scholarly interest in these albums and their contents, basic questions have yet to be explored: How to define “Chinese” in Persianate context in terms of painting? What types of Chinese visual materials, always oversimplified as “export painting” or diplomatic gift, can a medieval Persian painter obtain, and how? Is the Persianate collection of Chinese painting intellective and strategic, or simply a random gathering? How were the Chinese paintings appropriated and translated as they crossed borders into different cultural context? This corpus of materials in the albums in fact dynamically respond to Chinese sources of various origins and genres, and span a long temporal frame. In this paper, I seek to provide a tentative attribution of the provenances of these paintings, and discuss the subsequent phenomenon of copying and remounting in the workshop practice. To understand the composition of this corpus of “work of Cathay”, a comparison with the contemporary Japanese Sōgenga collection will also be made. 

​

Reflexive Surfaces and Monumental Engagement:

Chinese Porcelain in the Reshaping of European Antiquarianism

Feng He - University of Heidelberg 

​

This paper analyses two ways of displaying Chinese porcelain in Europe during the long eighteenth century, mounting and grouping, in order to find out how various recipient communities engaged and manipulated Chinese porcelain in the process of reconstructing European antiquarianism during the age of Enlightenment. In Song-dynasty China, cultivated emperors and the literati class created an antiquarian convention to visualise portable cultural relics as a genre of illustration in woodblock-printed books. Bearing images of antiquities, prosperity of book culture in late Ming and early Qing periods inspired porcelain artisans working in Jingdezhen civilian kilns. As a result, clusters of antiquities (bogu tu 博古圖) appeared as a motif on ceramic surfaces. In most cases, bogu motif on porcelain surface visualised strategies for collecting, categorising, and displaying porcelain. Porcelain vessels with this type of decoration are therefore defined as “meta-porcelain” in this paper to emphasise their pictorial reflexivity. At the dawn of art history as a new discipline, eighteenth-century European antiquaries and scholars endeavoured to involve collectables in their newly invented tradition of antiquarianism. Due to the rarity of Chinese porcelain, and influence by antiquarian favour for ancient Greek vases, European consumers ordered regional-renowned artisans to mount precious china with gilt bronze. What’s more, meta-porcelain with reflexive surfaces served as connoisseurs’ handbook, informing collectors to showcase their exhibits in a chinoiserie manner, thus invented a special interior design of “garniture” with a group of five or three vessels on display over fireplaces .Reflexive surfaces of meta-porcelain were essential for conceptualising the engagement of Chinese porcelain in a global context. Meanwhile, adjusted ways of displaying Chinese porcelain located at the heart of monumentalising the objects for enlightenment purposes. With specific cases and theoretical debates, this paper strives to shed light on the neglected situation of Chinese porcelain within European intellectual history. 

​

Beyond Wong Kar-wai: Conflations and Delineations of Chinese Cinema in the Age of Netflix

John 'Jake' Grefenstette - University of Chicago

​

How is the category of 'Chinese cinema' constructed in the age of Netflix? This paper follows recent canonization projects of Mainland Chinese classics between two trajectories: domestic film museum renovations (especially in Qingdao and Shanghai) and curated international user engagement with unstable classifications of 'Chinese cinema' in streaming services like Netflix and FilmStruck. The first trajectory will draw on an ongoing personal research project funded by the China in Transition Field Study grant from the Yenching Academy of Peking University. Here I will argue that the new Qingdao Film Museum and the newly reconfigured Shanghai Film Museum actively arrange the geography of museum artifacts to blur the historical delineation of Mainland from Taiwanese and Hong Kong traditions. In these locations, museumgoers see films like Edward Yang’s Yi Yi 一一 (2000) and Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love 花样年华 (2000) (not to mention a host of pre-1997 Hong Kong cinema) subsumed under the heading of “Chinese,” even to the point of neglect for Mainland classics. The second portion of my paper will weigh these tourist-focused decisions with streaming services abroad. Is it important, for example, that companies like The Criterion Collection – one of the most important mechanisms globally in the preservation and canonization of arthouse cinema – boast of little beyond Wong Kar-wai in their Chinese repertoire? In one illuminative March 2017 exception to this rule, the Criterion Collection and FilmStruck curated 'Charmers from China', a temporary exhibition of modern Chinese films. As in other cases, the potential patronization in this title hedges Criterion’s claims in the politically and aesthetically contentious process of anthologizing Mainland cinema. My paper will conclude with a survey of Chinese cinema on streaming services and the legal, political, and aesthetic motivations behind curating the ostensibly harmless sub-categories of Netflix’s 'International Movies'. 

​

Cosmopolitan China?: Guan Xiao and the Chinese National

Pavillion at the 2017 Venice Biennale

Lauren Walden - Coventry University 

​

Contemporary chinese artist Guan Xiao clamours ‘Identity is just bull****’ in an interview with the Financial Times (2016) apropos her show at the ICA, London. Xiao will show in the international pavilion at the 2017 biennale curated by Christine Macel, entitled Viva Arte Viva. A cosmopolitan mode of existence is unequivocally advocated by Xiao which could be perceived as meta-commentary on the format of the National Pavilion. Xiao eschews a postmodern sense of identity politics through her work which promulgates a cosmopolitan mode of existence. Extrapolating from the artists previous output, I align Xiao’s focus on the human form with Kantian cosmopolitanism (1785) as ‘a principle of humanity...as an end in itself’ (Kant: 2002:48-49). Xiao sculpts a cosmopolitan space that contrasts with the national Chinese pavilion and centres upon culturally hybrid phenomena. Her previous work has juxtaposed the veiled Islamic female with Greek statues and tropes of alterity prevalent on TV documentaries, including those of the BBC. Xiao’s work questions Eurocentric fetishizing of the other through the documentary format, by juxtaposing totems with cameras and vivid animal-patterned backdrops referencing the popularity of primitivism amongst the international avant-garde. At the 2017 Biennale she presents a video installation satirising the commodity fetishism surrounding Michelangelo’s sculpture David and a video entitled Action which explains how the force of rhythm aligns seemingly disparate entities. China’s National Pavillion display is entitled Continuum: Generation by Generation which seems imbricated in modernised versions of traditional Chinese art forms such as 山水 (Land and Water Painting) 书法 (Calligraphy) 影戏 (Shadow Puppetry) and 苏绣 (Suzhou Embroidery) given the trajectories of the artists presenting. Whilst the quality of the work is exemplary, the curatorial decision taken is an unashamed affirmation of patriotism which is aimed at a particular audience. China is a country of copious ethnic minorities but it appears the pavilion curator resists the acknowledgement of transnational cross-fertilisation within the contemporary Chinese art world. Such exchanges were palpable in China from the modernist era onwards which is something that the work of Guan Xiao fervently attests to. 

​

Panel 6: Producing Knowledge 

Moderator: Dirk Meyer

​

Discussing State Affairs Without Official Titles:

Jixia and Institutionalised Patronage in the Warring States

Alexandre Morton-Guermouche - Renmin University 

​

The Jixia Academy (稷下) of the Warring States Period (475-221 BCE) is remembered as one of the most prestigious and significant academic institutions throughout Chinese history, uniting masters across opposing disciplines and textual traditions in the pursuit of knowledge and the proliferation of the state. The flexibility of the academy was driven by the need for innovation in a time of Chinese division and war and rejected favoritism of a single textual tradition for a system of decentralized patronage. This attractive, self-regulated setting for scholars thus became a battleground for contrasting beliefs. This paper finds that literature produced within Jixia deliberately redefines the role of academics within China, broadening its perceived value in politics and statecraft, and challenging centuries of textual traditions and ritual beliefs in the process. At the core of this redefinition is a new context for academic purpose in service to a more permanent and everlasting state that – like the common people or the land itself – would outlive any single political allegiance or mandate of loyalty. Literature produced by the scholars of Jixia highlights the authority of the written word in shaping the way academia and the state interact within China. This discussion is part of a historical narrative of China’s engagement with its educated classes and the enduring effects on Chinese sociopolitical interactions. 

​

Alert of the Internal Borderlands: Yan Ruyi (1759-1826) and the Synthesis of Geographical Knowledge in Early Nineteenth-Century China

Yiying Pan - University of Chicago 

 

In 1796, a series of trans-provincial revolts—White Lotus Rebellions—broke out in Hubei, Sichuan, and Shaanxi provinces. This chain of crises dragged the attention of the expansionary Qing state back to its domestic territories. The once loosely governed Qinling-Daba mountains were then positioned at the center of the state’s strategic concerns at the turn of the nineteenth century. At this critical moment, officials like Zhuo Bingtian (1782-1855) urged the necessity of conducting geographical surveys in the borderlands between Hubei, Sichuan, and Shaanxi provinces; the local scholar-official Yan Ruyi was then dispatched to conduct such surveys. Concentrating on the case of Yan Ruyi, this paper examines how experiences and knowledge of engaging with an ungoverned marginal realm—like the Qinling-Daba mountains—triggered integrated strategic thinking of different geographical units of the Qing empire in the early nineteenth century. Reading Yan’s Guides to the Defense of the Three-Province Borderlands (Sansheng bianfang beilan) along with the borderland maps he made, as well as with state- or county-level archives, steles from castle (zhaibao) sites, and local gazetteers, this paper addresses the following three issues. First, what kinds of local knowledge was Yan Ruyi collecting and synthesizing for managing trans-provincial borderlands like the Qinling-Daba regions? Second, how did on-site surveys of such local knowledge influence Yan’s more general strategic reflections on the interrelationship between space and people? Last, situating Yan within the broader intellectual trend of strategic geography thinking, how did Yan’s methods of surveying and analyzing trans-provincial borderlands influence the flourishing geographical writings on both northwestern and coastal borderlands among the next generation of scholars after Yan Ruyi? 

​

書坊、商業出版與文人社群 — 從馮夢龍與晚明蘇州葉氏坊刻談起

Bookstore, Commercial Publishing and Literati Community: Feng Menglong and Yips’ Publishing at Suzhou in Late Ming (1573-1644)

Li Yingyu - Chinese University of Hong Kong 

​

晚明蘇州作為商業出版重地，其坊刻數量及質量均相當可觀，可稱是當 時中國出版文化的一個縮影。馮夢龍在其間於書稿編纂、批評圈點、書籍刊刻等各環節皆為人稱道，其宣導誘掖之功對於吳郡鐫書之盛起到了重要作用。細究馮氏的出版活動可以發現，他與當時蘇州的書坊主尤其是葉氏書坊關係密切，而且不僅僅是一位一位科舉不利的文人與若干商人之間的商業關係，這背後涉及的文人結社、評點之風、商業社會等引人入勝。書坊主的坊刻之舉雖因商業而興，卻不僅以商業為終，晚明書籍出版、文化流通、思想傳播之盛，諸位書商功不可沒。在以馮夢龍為代表的文人群體的共同作用下，「政治末世」中也得以閃現了如此極為難得的「文化盛世」。

​

Suzhou, as one of the crucial areas recognized for commercial publishing in Late Ming, owned impressive numbers and quality of published books, which could be regarded as an epitome of commercial publishing culture during the Late Ming. And there was a famous litterateur in Suzhou, Feng Menglong (1574-1646), known for his San Yan, possessing great reputation for publishing, editing, and assembling books, pingdian (Chinese literary tradition of commentary), and producing inscription which significantly inspired and contributed to the prosperous complexion of Suzhou in Late Ming. Through researching Feng’s publishing activities in depth, we can find that he had a close relationship with book publishers especially those named Yip. Actually, this kind of relationship was not only a business relationship between a man failing in the imperial examination and several businessmen.  It was also strongly associated with literati community, the function of Chinese traditional pingdian and the attractive commercial society. Therefore, this article will examine all the publishing activities of Feng Menglong combined with the Yip as a window through which one can see how the commercial publishing society operated and, particularly, how the literati community and bookstore managers interacted multifariously in seventeenth century of China. Although those businessmen’s publishing activities were motivated by self-interest, they weren't solely concerned with money, but made great contributions to books printing, culture circulation, and dissemination of ideas. And with the combined actions of literati such as Feng Menglong, the late phase of Ming dynasty reached its cultural heyday. 

​

Children, Science and the Enlightenment Discourse in the 1980s’ China:

A Case Study on the Juvenile Scientific Pictorial

Zhou Si - National University of Singapore 

​

As the keyword of the Enlightenment discourse in the 1980s’ China, 'science' was not only at the center of intellectual debates, but also a primary theme of children’s education. This essay draws attention to the case of the most popular science magazine for children in China during the 1980s - Juvenile Scientific Pictorial (1977-1989). This paper aims to analyze how different narrative tactics and pictorial forms other than textbooks in scientific publications for children contributed to the spread of scientific discourse, as well as to the emergence of a new image of the child -- from 'little red guard' to 'young scientist’ -- after the Cultural Revolution. This essay re-examines the cultural history of the 1980s by exploring the rhetorical strategies and the ideological implications in this popular science magazine for children. In particular, I am interested in how this pictorial mobilized the resources of the enlightenment discourse from the May Fourth period to justify the legitimacy of science as representation of advancement and even moral superiority. This discourse reveals the collective consciousness of the intellectuals of the 1980s to break from the history of the Cultural Revolution. This essay takes a close look at the space exploration stories. In this column, 'science' was in a 'neutral' and 'objective' appearance, but actually it intertwined intriguingly with the discourse of nationalism. This in turn reflects China’s changing perception of itself and the world towards the end of the Cold War. 

​

Panel 7: Making a 'Chinese' Civilisation

Moderator: Christopher Foster

​

Barbarized Subjects? Early Ming Court Policies and

the Tibetanisation of its Western Frontier

Xiaobai Hu - University of Pennsylvania 

​

For a long time, Ming China was considered an introverted state whose cultural realm was strictly confined by the ideology of the Chinese-Barbarian distinction. However, this is only partially true for it underestimates the transformative nature of Ming China’s relationship with the outside world. This paper looks specifically at early Ming’s policies toward its western contact zone with Tibet to investigate how a Chinese-Barbarian relationship was perceived at the time as one way to re-characterize the Ming’s statecraft. Before the middle 15th century, Ming China vigorously interacted with Tibetan religious powers, and even patronized their religious activities along the Ming-Tibet borderland with financial and institutional support. With a policy that required Tibetan monks to pacify borderland indigenes with religion as a necessity to keep their prestige at the Ming court, the Ming gradually, and to some extent ironically, Tibetanized its western frontier. What did Tibetan Buddhism mean for the Ming court and in the eyes of Ming borderland soldiers? How did, or did not, ethnicity play its role on the ground in substantializing a cross-cultural spectrum? Why did the political boundaries of early Ming not align with the geographic extent of the Han ethnoculture? By exploring the influence from the Mongol Yuan’s cosmopolitanism worldview and the Ming’s realistic concern in facing with the changing geopolitics, this paper seeks the rationales behind early Ming’s seemingly paradoxical frontier policy. Through examining a long-forgotten process of how the line between the Chinese and Tibetan cultural zones was demarcated, this paper intends to engage with the dynamics of the formation of Chineseness through a marginal prism. 

​

The Limits of the Known World in Pre-Modern Chinese Mytho-Geography

Oliver Hargrave - University of Oxford 

​

Defining what is meant by ‘Chineseness’ is a problem that has been approached from many angles within a number of scholarly fields. In pre-modern Chinese sources this problem is complicated further by the dangers of applying modern categories anachronistically, especially regarding modern notions of nationality and the nation state. Translated terms like ‘Chinese’ and ‘barbarians’ stand in for numerous and perhaps discrete terms in Chinese, attening distinctions between peoples and eras. The interrelated questions of ‘What is China?’ and ‘Who are the barbarians?’ still lack conclusive answers. This paper will examine these questions via ‘mytho-geographical’ texts such as the Classic of Mountains and Seas (Shanhaijing 山海經), the Record of Heretofore Lost Works (Shiyi ji 拾遺記) and the Classic of Divine Marvels (Shenyi jing 神異經). These texts, mostly produced during the Southern and Northern dynasties (Nan Bei chao 南北朝 240- 589 AD), record strange and notable people and beasts, often in distant locations. Despite the stereotypical assumption that far-off lands and the people in them are seen as non-Chinese and inferior in pre-modern sources, not all of the contents of these texts fit so neatly into a ‘them and us’ or a ‘civilised and uncivilised’ distinction. These texts offer up the exotic and extraordinary to amaze their readers, but they also engage with places and people that were considered to be at the limits of the known world. Alongside an examination of these texts, this paper will look at the history of terms for ‘Chinese’ and ‘non-Chinese’ and how the simple ‘Chinese’/‘barbarians’ distinction posited by modern translations can sometimes gloss over uneven and shifting distinctions of different people in different eras. 

​

From 'Ancestral Home' to 'China’s North-East': 

The Transition of Manchuria into an Integral Part of 'China' in the Early Twentieth Century

Yingzi Wang - SOAS 

​

It is well-known that the Qing maintained control in China for almost 300 years. The key to retaining power was balance in the relationship between Manchus, the other chief minorities in the empire, and the Han 漢 population, with its overwhelming demographic weight and cultural preponderance. The wholesale acceptance of Han culture helped the Qing government obtain legitimacy, but on the other hand, it struggled to retain its own characteristics and prevent complete assimilation/Sinicisation. Creating Manchuria as the 'ancestral homeland' and 'prohibiting' the whole area were part of the plan to maintain the distinctions of Manchus. Ever since the beginning of the dynasty, almost until the end of the Qing period, the North-East was administered differently from Han provinces. Instead of the provincial system, Manchuria was controlled by means of the military and it was only in the last decade of the Qing dynasty that reforms initiated by the Qing government were being implemented in Manchuria. These reforms should not only be seen as vitally important administrative adjustments, but also as a transformation from Manchu Homeland to a border region. My thesis aims to analyse the functional transition of Manchuria in the early twentieth century, particularly in the Xinzheng 新政 period, as well as the role which ethnic and national identities played in this process. Based on newly uncovered archival sources, mainly in Chinese but also in Manchu, I postulate that it was the ethnic complexity of Manchuria that allowed its transition from the 'ancestral home' of the Manchu people as well as of the ruling Aisin Gioro clan to an integral part of the emerging ‘New China’. In geopolitical terms, Manchuria transformed itself from a border region of the Qing Empire into a regional centre interconnected with the Chinese heartland, but also with Korea and Japan. The effect of the Xinzheng reforms thus produced very different consequences compared to neighbouring Mongolia, a legacy which would last throughout the ‘long twentieth century’.

 

Perspective from the Margins:
A Comparative Study of Textbooks of Chinese History in East Asia 

Nie Lina - Harvard University  

​

Historical studies of Han/non-Han relations during the era of the Republic of China, experienced a fundamental change from the Qing dynasty, with heightened consciousness of Chineseness in the discourse of ethnicity. As Chow Kai-wing and Nimrod Baranovitch have argued, history textbooks as a state-approved educational material, exemplified ethnic anxiety and conflicts in cultural and social realms (Chow, 2001, Baranovitch, 2010). Moreover, since textbooks had a much wider audience than professional scholarship, they had greater impact on public opinion. The earliest history textbooks were translation of Japanese works such as Chūtō Tōyōshi 中等東洋史 in late Qing period. Later in the 20th century, considerable modifications were made, in particular during the Second Sino-Japanese war, as Chinese historians rewrote the textbooks in response to contemporary politics and warfare, exhibiting quite different views of ethnic relations compared to the previous Japanese textbooks. It also marked an independent and nationalistic writing of Chinese history. By doing a comparative study of depictions of Yuan dynasty, one of the most powerful non-Han regimes in history, in Japanese and Chinese history textbooks, this essay explores how Japanese and Chinese historiography interpreted ethnic relations in China and harnessed Mongol history as a political metaphor to bolster their own cultural discourse. Through analyzing differences in the depiction and organization of historical events in books including Guoshi dagang 國史大綱, Zhongguo tongshi yaolue 中國通史要略 and earlier Japanese textbooks Tōyōshiyo東洋史要, Chūtō Tōyōshi 中等東洋史, this essay proposes that during the Sino-Japanese war, Chinese history textbooks attributed more negative qualities to Yuan by positing the cultural superiority of the Han and derogating the military strength of the Mongol empire, while Japanese textbooks took a more positive outlook on the Mongols’ cultural and military policies, and argued that Japan was more powerful than Yuan. In doing so, this essay aims to conduct dynamic and comparative research on history writing in 20th century East Asia. 

​

Panel 8: Performing China

Moderator: Helena F.S. Lopes

​

The Chinese Casals: Receptions of a European Cultural Hero

in the Chinese Speaking World during the Cold War

Min Erh Wang - University of Oxford 

​

Pablo Casals (1876-1973), one of the best-regarded European musicians of the 20th century, has enjoyed a comparable reputation in the Chinese speaking territories. Even though Casals never performed a concert in Hong Kong, Taiwan, or China, where he acquired prominent fame through recordings and publications. Curiously, however, in addition to his undisputable musical achievements, he was distinguished in the Chinese speaking world by his humanitarian contributions made through his staunch opposition to the Franco regime and life-long advocacy of freedom. Furthermore, the humanitarian understandings of Casals have arisen as a result of circumstances connected to the Cold War and to the conflicting political ideologies across the Taiwan Strait between the communist China and US-supported Taiwan. In Taiwan, Casals’ extra-musical contributions were deemed to be 'anti-communist' in nature, whereas in Mainland China he was regarded as a 'people’s musician' and likened to the novelist Lu Xun, a leftist icon in the early twentieth century. Thus, in order to gain a clearer understanding of the phenomena behind Casals’ prominence in Taiwan and China, this paper will examine relevant writings found in musical magazines and books which were translated or written in Chinese after 1949 and unravel the musical interactions that took place on both sides of the Taiwan Strait during the Cold War.