The Writing of History in 20th Century China: Between Linear Time and the Reproduction on National Consciousness

04/06/2007 (All day)

4 - 7 June 2007
Leiden, Netherlands

Convenor(s): Axel Schneider and Viren Murthy
Organized by MEARC/ University of Chicago

Organization committee:
Axel Schneider, Leiden University
Chris Goto-Jones, Leiden University
Rikki Kersten, Australian National University
Viren Murthy, Leiden University 

Contact: Axel Schneider (a.schneider@mearc.eu)
www.mearc.eu

For detailed programme information please download the attached Word document below

Abstract:
Since the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Chinese, Japanese and Korean intellectuals have thought about their traditions in new ways under the influence of the categories and disciplinary divisions prevalent in Western Universities. This conference will focus on how intellectuals expressed and theorized this change by negotiating indigenous concepts of temporal continuity with larger narratives of history. It is evident that under some description, scholars in East Asia have been writing histories since ancient times, often making reference to formative texts from their shared intellectual traditions such as the Book of History (Shiji) and the Twenty Four Histories (er shi si shi). However, the term for history (shi - China and Japan) undergoes a transformation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and hence famous intellectuals such as Liang Qichao (in China) and Fukuzawa Yukichi (in Japan) can claim that there were no real histories written during the pre-modern period. These changes are of course partly made possible by a transformation of educational systems and, in particular, by the abolition of the imperial system of examinations (in China) and the creation of a modern university system (in Japan).
This new intellectual and institutional context would make even residual practices of figuring the past take on new meanings. Given this complex interaction and mutual imbrication of traditional practices, new conceptions of time and history and various conceptions of how to imagine China's, Japan's or Korea's place in the regional order and their place in the world more widely, there were of course many different inter-pretations of how to write history in 20th century East Asia. Some of these historical practices adopted ele-ments of different competing ideological structures, such as linear time, historical teleology and national con-sciousness and others that resisted such ideologies while trying to rescue aspects of the tradition to imagine new political ideals. Moreover, despite, or even because of radical changes in political forms, East Asian intel-lectuals across the region have constantly returned to the problem of history throughout the 20th century and the various participants in this conference will examine the implications of the production of history during different periods of 20th century East Asia, from the late Qing (China) or Bakumatsu (Japan), through Imperial Japan, communist China, and even to the present day.