What is 'Modern' China? Desperately seeking for 'a' birthday

Ferlanti, Federica ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8284-3663 2023. What is 'Modern' China? Desperately seeking for 'a' birthday. De Giorgi, Laura and Graziani, Sofia, eds. The Historian’s Gaze Essays on Modern and Contemporary China in Honour of Guido Samarani, Venice University Press, pp. 9-24. (10.30687/978-88-6969-723-4/001)

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Abstract

Historians have been obsessed with pinpointing the birth of modern China. However, what do we (historians) look for when we try to trace its birth? And more importantly, how do we understand the term ‘modern’ and by extension ‘modernity’? Has its meaning changed over time? This essay addresses these problems by focussing on two main aspects. The first aspect concerns Chinese modernity in relation to historians’ subjectivity and periodisation. The concept of modern and modernity is not set in stone and what is modern depends on who is asking the question, with context, nationality/ ethnicity and gender accounting for historians’ subjectivity. One should also take into account that new perspectives are gained due to the passage of time and the concept of what makes China modern at any given point shifts accordingly. The second aspect is the nation‑ and state‑building process. The changing relationship between the individual and the state seems a good vantage point from which to explore modernity. From citizenship to mass politics, the essay draws on different examples to illustrate the main trends that emerged and bedded in during the Republican period, and beyond, and explain why we might (or might not) consider them markers of modernity.

Item Type:	Book Section
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	History, Archaeology and Religion
Publisher:	Venice University Press
ISBN:	978-88-6969-724-1
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	12 March 2024
Date of Acceptance:	7 December 2022
Last Modified:	12 Mar 2024 16:36
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/167123

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