Description

As the twentieth century came to an end, Eric Hobsbawm defines the “short twentieth century” as a period from 1914 to 1992, beginning with the eruption of the First World War and ending with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Hobsbawm terms this period as “the age of extremes”. In his earlier work, Depoliticized Politics, Wang Hui defines the twentieth century of China as from 1911 to 1976, as part of the “long revolution”. Piecing together these two overlapping versions of “short twentieth century” that were made from different angles, Wang Hui raises two questions for his inquiry on China’s short twentieth century: How should the “continuity” between the empire compound and the sovereign state in the age of revolution at the beginning of this short century be explained? How should the “continuity” of revolution and post-revolution in the great transformation at the end of this short century be interpreted? The Chinese revolution of 1911, as the beginning of this “long revolution”, is not only the beginning of China’s “short twentieth century”, but also the most significant among the chain of events that marked the “awakening of Asia.” This lecture is a revisit to this beginning.

Wang Hui is Professor of Literature and History at Tsinghua University, and Director of Tsinghua Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences. His research focuses on Chinese intellectual history and literature. He is the author of a large number of books and articles. Among his books in English are China’s New Order: Society, Politics and Economy in Transition (Harvard University Press, 2003), The End of the Revolution: China and the limits of Modernity (Verso Books, 2009 and 2011) and The Politics of Imagining Asia (Harvard University Press, 2011). His four-volume work, The Rise of Modern Chinese Thought, is widely regarded as one of the most significant achievements across a number of fields within the last few decades.

The lecture will be followed by reception.