Voicing Concerns

Opening a new window into Chinese intellectual discourse, this unique book is a critical engagement with the issues, problems, and meanings of contemporary Chinese intellectual thought. As key participants in these debates who have exercised a significant influence on the development of contemporary Chinese thought, the volume's contributors explore concerns over the role of the intellectual and the outcomes of knowledge production in the humanities. Masterfully translated, these essays provide a wide range of conflicting perspectives on contemporary Chinese intellectuality, yet they share in common the belief held by many Chinese intellectuals in the power of intellectual labor to shape and change social life. By showing how Western social and cultural theory as well as the May Fourth and pre-modern Confucian traditions are being adapted for contemporary Chinese intellectual use, the book highlights how Chinese academics have affirmed an independent critical role for themselves in post-Mao China and the scope of the knowledge industry that they have created and developed since 1979.

Opening a new window into Chinese intellectual discourse, this unique book is a critical engagement with the issues, problems, and meanings of contemporary Chinese intellectual thought. As key participants in these debates who have exercised a significant influence on the development of contemporary Chinese thought, the volume's contributors explore concerns over the role of the intellectual and the outcomes of knowledge production in the humanities. Masterfully translated, these essays provide a wide range of conflicting perspectives on contemporary Chinese intellectuality, yet they share in common the belief held by many Chinese intellectuals in the power of intellectual labor to shape and change social life. By showing how Western social and cultural theory as well as the May Fourth and pre-modern Confucian traditions are being adapted for contemporary Chinese intellectual use, the book highlights how Chinese academics have affirmed an independent critical role for themselves in post-Mao China and the scope of the knowledge industry that they have created and developed since 1979.

Chapter 1 Introduction
Chapter 2 The Self-Made Maps of Chinese Intellectuality
Chapter 3 The Topography of Intellectual Culture in 1990s Mainland China: A Survey
Chapter 4 The Popular Cultural Movement of the 1980s
Chapter 5 Revisiting the Perils of "Designer Pidgin Scholarship"
Chapter 6 On Western Literary Theory in China
Chapter 7 Some Reflections on New Confucianism in Mainland Chinese Culture of the 1990s
Chapter 8 On Scientism and Social Theory in Modern Chinese Thought
Chapter 9 Interpreting Modern Chinese History through the Theory of Ultra-Stable Systems
Chapter 10 Patriotism versus Intellectual Curiosity: Jin Guantao's Approach to Chinese History
Chapter 11 In Search of a "Third Way": A Conversation regarding "Liberalism" and the "New Left Wing"
Chapter 12 Time's Arrows: Imaginative Pasts and Nostalgic Futures