Title: The Dilemma of Modern Chinese Conservatism: the Ruthlessness of Modernity and the Escape into Particularity
Lecturer: Axel Schneider (Professor, Gottingen University, Germany)
Chairperson: XU Jilin (Professor, Department of History, East China Normal University)
Date: 3 pm, September 18th, 2015 (Friday)
Venue: Room 5303, Building of School of Humanities, Minhang Campus, ECNU
Sponsor: Si-mian Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities, ECNU
Abstract of the Lecture:
It seems that the daunting need for change, the dynamic of repeated revolutions and upheavels forced conservatives into a marginal position in modern Chinese history. Chinese conservatism, at least as an intellectual and political force, has thus been quite weak throughout the 20th century. Why was that so? Did conservatives simply misjudge the challenges of their times or was their failure to become more than marginal the unavoidable outcome of deeper dilemmas? My presentation will address these questions by tracking conservatism back to its roots in the 17th and 18th century and by showing how the increasing inability of conservatism to stop or even slow down the process of modernization forced them into positions of cultural and/or historical particularity.