The Creation of the Chinese Intellectual: Appraising the Role of the State and Social Movements

• In Event: Paper Session 2

Abstract

This paper investigates and challenges the ways in which the Chinese intellectual has been conceptualized. The role and notion of the Chinese intellectual has undergone multiple distinct shifts: from the Confucian scholar to the modern individual, from the exalted intellectual to the servant of the regime. The socio-political conditions which engendered different conceptions of the Chinese intellectual are described and analyzed through a historical context which emphasized the difference between “truth” and “knowledge.” These included Chinese language and literature reform movements along with Westernization over the last two centuries which provided the Chinese with novel understandings of “truth” and “knowledge.” These new perspectives discursively constructed and altered the notion of the distinct yet hybrid Chinese intellectual over time.

Authors

• Jie Qi, Utsunomiya University

• Shengping Zhang, Meijo University