{"id":28130,"date":"2017-12-21T13:10:22","date_gmt":"2017-12-21T11:10:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aki-goettingen.de\/conference-report-conceptions-of-the-world-in-twentieth-century-chinese-historiography\/"},"modified":"2017-12-21T13:18:27","modified_gmt":"2017-12-21T11:18:27","slug":"conference-report-conceptions-of-the-world-in-twentieth-century-chinese-historiography","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aki-goettingen.de\/zh-hans\/conference-report-conceptions-of-the-world-in-twentieth-century-chinese-historiography\/","title":{"rendered":"Conference Report: Conceptions of the World in Twentieth-Century Chinese Historiography"},"content":{"rendered":"

Conceptions of the World in Twentieth-Century Chinese Historiography<\/strong>
\n Conference Report<\/strong>
\n Dr. Xin Fan<\/strong><\/p>\n

The rise of China at the turn of the twentieth-first century has had a crucial transformative impact on global economic and political order. From this background, scholars and policy makers have been debating how the political elites in China imagine this country\u2019s future in a globalized world. Some historians look back into China\u2019s rich legacy of historical writing from the twentieth century and even earlier, and attempt to make sense of how certain traditional concepts and transnational ideas together shaped the changing conceptions of the \u201cworld\u201d in China.
\nOn October 26 and 27, G\u00f6ttingen University\u2019s Centre for Modern East Asian Studies organized an international conference on the conceptions of the world in twentieth-century Chinese historiography in G\u00f6ttingen, Germany. With the generous support of the Volkswagen Foundation and the Andrew Mellon Foundation as well as the Academic Confucius Institute G\u00f6ttingen, a cohort of leading scholars from China, North America, and Europe discussed aspects of the topic and presented their own research. Using historiography as its primary field of inquiry, they investigated a variety of ways through which Chinese historians constructed and deconstructed temporal and spatial possibilities to place China in the globalizing world. In that manner, the workshop established an exchange between the field of China studies on one hand and global and transregional studies on the other hand, and it opened a dynamic dialogue for the continuous exploration of this topic.<\/p>\n

\"\"On October 26, Ge Zhaoguang (Fudan University) delivered a keynote speech on conceptions of the world in traditional Chinese historiography. He argued that, although world awareness was rare in China prior to the nineteenth century, three opportunities for critical change emerged due to the introduction of Buddhism in the Middle Period, changes in the international environment during the Song Dynasty, and the influence of Muslim world historical knowledge under the Mongol occupation. From elite politics to popular knowledge, he developed a bird\u2019s-eye view and concluded that only after textbooks with knowledge about the world became common in the late Qing era did world awareness spread in Chinese society.
\nFrom an overview of traditional Chinese historiography, the panel discussions on October 27 moved to the twentieth century. Speakers on the first panel explored various ways in which Chinese intellectuals made sense of the world in the early twentieth century. Hon Tze-ki (City University of Hong Kong\/SUNY Geneseo) discussed how the rise of print capitalism in Shanghai played a significant role in spreading knowledge about the world at the opening of the twentieth century. Julia Schneider (University of G\u00f6ttingen) examined how eminent Chinese thinkers in the early twentieth century debated the nature of the Chinese nation through the lens of ethnicity. Kristin Stapleton showed how a lesser-known Sichuan writer, Li Zongwu\u674e\u5b97\u543e, creatively re-interpreted Confucian ethics in the context of coming world conflicts and invented \u201cThick-Black Studies.\u201d
\nFrom newspapers and textbooks to popular literature, the two papers in the next panel returned to the professional study of history. Yet, they also raised new questions about the tension between localism, regionalism, and universalism in China\u2019s world-historical tradition. Han Xiaorong (Hong Kong Polytechnic University) surveyed the state of Southeast Asian Studies in China and analyzed how the China-centered bias prevented the development of the field. Analyzing on the cases of Liu Yizheng \u67f3\u8a52\u5fb5, Liang Qichao \u6881\u555f\u8d85, and Liu Xianxin\u5289\u54b8\u7098, Axel Schneider (University of G\u00f6ttingen) delved into the epistemological challenges which some Chinese historians faced when turning to the field of universal history.
\nThe linear view of world-historical development in Marxist historiography certainly affected Chinese conceptions of the world, which was the theme for the next panel. Fan Xin (SUNY Fredonia; Global Fellow in G\u00f6ttingen) discussed how world historians in 1950s China adopted an ambiguous Marxist concept, the Asiatic Mode of Production, and struggled to propose an alternative, less Euro-centric path to global modernity for countries in the non-Western world. At the same time, as Liu Xiaoyuan (University of Virginia) demonstrated in his case study of Chinese communist leaders\u2019 views of Tibet, these spatial concepts were by and large adopted to serve the geo-political concerns of the emerging communist state and open to various interpretations.
\nChen Huaiyu (Arizona State University), in the next panel, spoke about the dynamic scholarly exchange between Chinese historians and their foreign counterparts in the early People\u2019s Republic of China, which, he contended, led to the rise of \u201cAsian History\u201d as a new historiographical field of inquiry, providing an alternative to the Euro-centric world historical framework prior to the Cultural Revolution. Q. Edward Wang (Rowan University\/Peking University), by contrast, analyzed how the rise of China as a new mighty global power affects the relationship between world history and Chinese history in this century. It seems to him that the flourishing of world-historical studies in China today might register a resurgence of nationalist discourse in the writing of history. Concluding the panel, Antoon De Baets (University of Groningen) discussed how historical writing has been used as a tool of resistance in totalitarian contexts. Surveying dozens of post-1945 examples from around the globe, he contended that, in the final analysis, historical analogies are templates for conversation, criticism and action under oppressive regimes, and that, if successful, they constitute small victories against autocratic power. They are sparks in the dark.
\nFrom archive-based historical research to question-driven intellectual and philosophical inquiries, the speakers in the conference adopted various approaches to the discussion on the changing Chinese worldview over the course of the twentieth century. Not only did they engage with past debates, as with Ge Zhaoguang\u2019s reflection on Fairbank\u2019s impact-response thesis, but they also posited new questions, especially from perspectives that have been neglected in previous scholarship. For example, some scholars have identified the significant role of popular culture in shaping modern identity in China and the necessity to reevaluate world-historical traditions in order to be able to reflect the nuanced changes in our views of the world. Thus, a continuous discussion based on even more diverse approaches is yet in order. Aside from the speakers, scholars from China, Europe, and America also attended the event.<\/p>\n

List of Speakers and Panel Chairs\"\"<\/p>\n

De Baets, Antoon
\nThe University of Groningen, The Netherlands
\nChen, Huaiyu
\nArizona State University, US
\nGe, Zhaoguang
\nFudan University, China
\nHan, Xiaorong
\nHong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong
\nHon, Tze-ki
\nThe City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
\nLiu, Xiaoyuan
\nThe University of Virginia, US
\nStapleton, Kristin
\nThe University at Buffalo, US
\nWang, Q. Edward
\nPeking University, China\/Rowan University, US<\/p>\n

G\u00f6ttingen Based scholars<\/p>\n

Fan, Xin (SUNY Fredonia; Global Fellow)
\nSachsenmaier, Dominic
\nSchneider, Axel
\nSchneider, Julia<\/p>\n

Conference Program<\/p>\n

26 October 2017
\nKWZ 0.603
\n18:00 to 20:00
\nKeynote Speech
\nGe, Zhaoguang (Fudan University)
\nTitle: Global Elements in Traditional Chinese Historiography (in Chinese)<\/p>\n

20:00 to 21:00 Conference Dinner<\/p>\n

27 October 2017
\nHistorische Sternwarte
\nGeismar Landstr. 11, 37083 G\u00f6ttingen<\/p>\n

9:00 to 9:15: Opening Remarks, Fan Xin & Dominic Sachsenmaier<\/p>\n

9:15 to 11:15 Panel I
\nMaking Sense of China and the World During the Early 20th Century
\nChair: Dominic Sachsenmaier (G\u00f6ttingen University)<\/p>\n

Hon, Tze-ki (The City University of Hong Kong)
\nTitle: Locating China in the World: Newspapers and Textbooks in Late Qing Period<\/p>\n

Schneider, Julia (G\u00f6ttingen University)
\nTitle: Writing a General History of China (Zhongguo tongshi): Thinking about Ethnicity in Early Nationalist Historiography<\/p>\n

Stapleton, Kristin (University at Buffalo)
\nTitle: Popular History from the Pope of Thick-Black Studies<\/p>\n

11.15-11.45 Coffee Break<\/p>\n

11:45 to 13:00 Panel 2
\nProblems of Regionalism, Universalism and Localism
\nChair: Xin Fan (SUNY Fredonia; Global Fellow)<\/p>\n

Han, Xiaorong (Hong Kong Polytechnic University)
\nTitle: Southeast Asia in Twentieth Century Chinese Historiography<\/p>\n

Schneider, Axel (G\u00f6ttingen University)
\nTitle: Universal progress and particular history: Chinese engagement with concepts of universal history<\/p>\n

13:00 to 14:15 Lunch Break<\/p>\n

14:15\u2013 16:00: Panel 3
\nChinese World Historical Outlooks and Marxism
\nChair: Kristin Stapleton (University at Buffalo)<\/p>\n

Fan, Xin (SUNY Fredonia; Global Fellow)
\nTitle: The Forced Analogy: Marxism, Historiography, and the Chinese Worldview<\/p>\n

Liu, Xiaoyuan (University of Virginia)
\nTitle: Tibet and Beijing’s View of the World<\/p>\n

16:00 \u2013 16.30 Coffee Break<\/p>\n

16:30 \u2013 18:30 Panel 4
\nChallenges and Opportunities of Global Historical Scholarship
\nChair: Dominic Sachsenmaier (G\u00f6ttingen University)<\/p>\n

Chen, Huaiyu (Arizona State University)
\nTitle: The Rise of the \u201cAsian History\u201d in Mainland China in the 1950s: A Global Perspective<\/p>\n

Wang, Q. Edward (Rowan University)
\nTitle: World History on A Par with Chinese History? \u2014 China\u2019s Search for World Power<\/p>\n

De Baets, Antoon (University of Groningen)
\nTitle: The Subversive Power of Historical Analogies: A Global Approach<\/p>\n

18:30 \u2013 18:45. Closing Remarks<\/p>\n

19:00 Conference Dinner<\/p>\n

List of Outside Guests (Incomplete)
\nB\u00fcttner, Clemens
\nGoethe University Frankfurt, Germany
\nChen, Yarong
\nAarhus University, Denmark
\nChu, Sinan
\nVisiting fellow at the University of Hamburg, Germany
\nSyracuse University, US
\nLiu, Ning
\nFree University Berlin, Germany
\nLiu, Shihua and Yexia Sun
\nNortheast Normal University, Changchun, China
\nYang, Alvin
\nThe University of Kassel, Germany<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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