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Kexue Xiaopinwen and Mass Science Education in Wartime and Revolutionary China
Thu, July 16, 2:30 to 4:00pm, EFI, 1.55English Abstract
In 1931 a Soviet schoolbook about the Five-Year Plan was a best seller in urban China. It was written by the Soviet engineer-turned writer Mikhail Il’in and translated by a then progressive Chinese writer Dong Chuncai. In the process of translating Il’in’s writings Dong and his colleagues developed a new literary form kexue xiaopinwen, or scientific-artistic essay that explicates scientific notions through storytelling and in a rather personal way. It became widely utilized in a time of revolution and war in China. Previous Chinese and English studies have focused on how the leftwing intellectuals utilized this literary form to attract urban readers and compete against the consumption-oriented leisure readings. Rarely has it been recognized that kexue xiaopinwen was re-created and widely utilized in science education in Communist ruled rural areas when Dong and his urban-based scientists and writers later moved from Shanghai to the Communist ruled rural areas.
This paper highlights the transnational and trans-regional origins of mass science education in Communist China, as well as the identity transformations of Chinese intellectuals from urban progressives to state educators. It examines wartime science education in rural China through tracing the recreation of kexue xiaopinwen by Dong and his colleagues. I argue that a localized mass science education came into being as urban-based leftwing and progressive intellectuals transformed themselves into Communist educators and their work became ideological state apparatus. Whereas the urban-based popular science intends to offer an imagined modern world that Soviet and progressive scientific world represented, the rural science education focuses on themes and topics of local agrarian production during the war of resistance against the Japanese invasion. Their works not only cultivated rural population with laws of natural science but also motivated them to observe and make changes to local environments.