Imagined civilization

• Verfasst von: Sela, Ori [VerfasserIn]
• Titel: Imagined civilization
• Titelzusatz: identity and nation building in modern China
• Verf.angabe: Ori Sela
• E-Jahr: 2024
• Jahr: 2025-03-07
• Fussnoten: Gesehen am 13.03.2025
• Titel Quelle: Enthalten in: The journal of transcultural studies
• Ort Quelle: Heidelberg : Exzellenzcluster Asia and Europe, 2010
• Jahr Quelle: 2024
• Band/Heft Quelle: 15(2024), 1/2, Seite 80-111$i32
• ISSN Quelle: 2191-6411
• DOI: doi:10.17885/heiup.jts.2024.1-2.25089
• Schlagwörter: (g)China / (s)Nationenbildung
• Datenträger: Online-Ressource
• Sprache: eng
• K10plus-PPN: 1919743766
• K10plus-PPN:
  Universitätsbibliothek
• Lokale URL UB: Zum Volltext

Abstract

This paper analyzes the journey of the modern concept of “civilization” from the West into China, via Japan. It traces how Chinese intellectuals at the turn of the twentieth century used the term and the consequences there of, through the prism of the proclaimed need to construct a modern nation, state, and society while negotiating the tensions between “old” and “new.” I argue that their ideas and imaginaries of civilization were highly significant in shaping national identity, theories, and practices and were consequential at the individual level as well. The essay also follows the ways in which civilization, as a term and concept, traveled from the 1920s to the contemporary People’s Republic of China (PRC). It shows how the concept lost its appeal in the Maoist era but bounced back in the post-Mao years, particularly over the past decade. I discuss the current uses and understandings of civilization under the leadership of Xi Jinping, and examine how century-old notions have been transformed. More specifically, the essay argues that the relationship between “civilization” and the “nation” changed dramatically and that these terms acquired new meanings with the changing global context, therefore serving different ends internally and externally. Presentist accounts often ignore the rich conceptual base on which newer ideas develop, therefore overlooking not only alternative ways of understanding but also the deeper context of current developments; the article aims to serve as a corrective to such accounts by highlighting the historical trajectory and links of the past usage of a concept to its present.