R esearch
A R E A S
O F I N T E R E S T S
_______________________Conceptual_______________________
history
of the production and circulation of knowledge
colonialism,
nationalism, and globalization
historiography,
memory, and social theory
______________________Geographical______________________
China, Taiwan,
Japan, Asian Pacific
Salvador Dalí, The Persistence of Memory (1931)
C U R R E N T P R O J
E C T S
Seeking Truth From Facts
This project examines the historical emergence of
“society” as a privileged site of political discourses and an object of
scientific investigation. I particularly focus on the social and cultural
processes of the Chinese social survey movement in order to unravel the complex
mechanics of social scientific knowledge-production. This study ultimately
sheds new light on our understanding of twentieth-century Chinese history as
well as the larger global processes in which social scientific knowledge became
the vital technique in the construction of our modern social and political
imaginaries.
Nationalism and Consumerism in Contemporary “Greater China”
China’s rapid integration into the global
system during the past two decades has generated a heightened sense of cultural
anxiety and identity crisis among many Chinese. While such a cultural disquiet
is not historically unprecedented, the current upsurge of Chinese
ultra-nationalism has to be placed in the global context of the transformation
of the nation-state system as well as the penetration of consumerism into the
everyday life.
This ongoing project examines the collaboration and tensions between nationhood and marketplace as modes of discourses and forms of cultural practices in contemporary China. These two imagined cultural and social spaces, both being regarded as crucial to the country’s modernization project by the authoritarian regime and the general public alike, are among the most important sites to understand the political and social landscapes of China today.
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