Abstract:
This talk explores contemporary guoxue (国学) discourse as encompassed by the guoxue craze (国学热)–an academic, popular and cultural movement that gained ascendency in the early 1990’s Mainland China and continues well into the 21st century. I first provide an overview of two early 20th century guoxue discourses, namely the guocui (国粹) intellectual movement of the late-Qing Dynasty (since 1905) and the movement to reorganize national heritage (整理国故) that emerged from the May Fourth New Culture Movement (1921-1925). I then move on to demonstrate that contemporary guoxue shares considerable similarities with these two early 20th century guoxue discourses, but at the same time bares the marks of its own time. I argue that guoxue since the 1990s expands in the scope and significance far beyond the limits of its predecessor movements, manifesting China’s newly-acquired cultural self-respect as well as newly-built certainty in resourcefulness of its traditional culture to China, and beyond. I conclude by presenting and discussing the tentative thesis structure that builds upon the arguments presented in this talk. |
