Identity, History, and Politics - The Critical Review (1922-33) and the Cultural Debate in the Early Twentieth-Century China & Creating Modern Education in Late Qing China: Idea, Institution, and Politics, 1901-1911.
Dr. Ya-pei Kuo
Research
My research during my year at MEARC focused on two topics. The first is a monograph on the conservative discourse in the 1920s. The second is the transformation of the image of Confucius in the late Qing. Altogether my researches address the historical processes through which China conceived and asserted its identity in relation to the rising vision of modernity.
On the the first project I circulated the draft monograph among other MEARC members and, based on their feedback and criticism, reconceptualised it. I completed two chapters of it during the academic year 2006/2007. These chapters, together with a new book outline, have been submitted to MEARC/Leiden Series in Modern East Asian History and Politics for international peer-review.
The second project I have been working on, examines the initiation of the modern school system in 1901-11, and reassesses the falling manchu dynasty's ambiguous legacy. in the name of nation-building, the founding of modern schools placed at the imperial state's disposal a powerful tool of governing through social and cultural programming. As such, the creation of a modern school system, while a landmark in China's institutional modernisation, also carried imprints of the imperial state's expansionist ambition.
Products academic year 2006/2007
- Lecture 'Creating the National Symbol: Confucius Worship, Civic Ritual, and Modernizing State, 1901-1911', MEARC Lecture Series, Leiden University, March 2007;
- Article 'In One Body with the People: Worship of Confucius in the Xinzheng Reforms, 1901-1911', Submitted to Modern China, March 2007;
- Paper 'The Making of Confucian China: Modern Confucianism and Missionary Enterprise', AAS Annual meeting, Boston, March 2007;
- Paper 'Temporality of Knowledge and History Writing in early Twentieth-Century China - Liu Yizheng and a History of Chinese Culture' for the international MEARC/VICI conference: The Writing of History in 20th Century Asia: Between Linear Time and the Reproduction of National Consciousness, Leiden University, June 2007;
- Lecture 'Confucius Worship and Civic Ritual, 1902-1911', Oxford University, June 2007;
- 'Redeploying Confucius; Imperial State and Nation Imaging in Modern China, 1901-1911', in Mayfair Yang (ed.), Chinese Religiosities: Afflictions of Modernity and State Formation, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008.
