"This book provides a wide-ranging display of the ways in which 'cosmopolitanism' has meaning in China, c. 1600–c. 1900 and how these possibilities were reduced subsequently. Significantly, the volume shows the meanings of cosmopolitanism for different kinds of people in Qing China, including Manchus, Muslims, Koreans (in relation to the Qing, if not in the Qing). It further explicates the multiple framings within which different modalities of cosmopolitanism were achieved, including Buddhist and Confucian. It also shows cosmopolitanism not merely as a feature of thought, but suggests implications of such approaches in matters of governance. Creating multiple challenges to conventional views of early modern and modern China, this important book offers opportunities to craft a more sensible and persuasive understanding of how China’s early modern regional world became part of a late twentieth-century Inner Asian and East Asian world region." —R. Bin Wong, Distinguished Professor of History, UCLA; and Director, UCLA Asia Institute

"By exploring the historical links between Confucian cosmology, imperial ideology, political identities and interests, Cosmopolitanism in China changes the terms of understanding cosmopolitanism. It throws into relief the special character of cosmopolitanisms in Europe, South Asia and other parts of the world and thus begins the task of building a true cosmopolitanism for the planet." —Prasenjit Duara, Oscar Tang Professor of East Asian Studies, Duke University

"[A] handsome volume ... organized chronologically and by topics, accompanied by a short introduction by the editors plus a useful index. The volume maintains two main points. The first is that cosmopolitanism in China is not a new phenomenon ... Quite the contrary, it is argued that cosmopolitanism had been operative from the Qing dynasty up to the Early Republican period, and was challenged and brought down by precisely those radical thinkers and activists who struggled to make China a part of the family of nations. The second main point concerns the notion of cosmopolitanism itself: the editors stress the necessity of going beyond a general sensitivity towards cultural diversity and the promotion of all-inclusive universality ... Hence, their reinquiry into Qing culture searches for evidence of crucial cultural exchange and engagement, of true ethical, intellectual and moral commitment to the other, of intellectual visions that surpass the local and create something new that transcends the old, all within a process of trial and amendment. ... Taken together or read one by one, the eight chapters collected in this volume illustrate what Elverskog rightly concluded, that 'there did exist a tradition of Qing cosmopolitanism, and that the Chinese tradition has the cultural, intellectual and religious resources needed to foster cosmopolitanism.'” — Comparative Literature & World Literature

Minghui Hu is an associate professor of history at University of California Santa Cruz. He earned his PhD from the department of history at UCLA, an MA from the graduate program in science and technology studies at Virginia Tech, and a BS from the department of civil engineering at Tamkang University, Taiwan. Dr. Hu was an Andrew Mellon postdoctoral fellow, and he is the author of China's Transition to Modernity: The New Classical Vision of Dai Zhen (University of Washington Press).

About Johan Elverskog

Johan Elverskog is the Altshuler University Distinguished Teaching Professor and Chair of Religious Studies at Southern Methodist University. He holds a PhD and MA from Indiana University, and a BA from the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Elverskog is the author and editor of numerous articles and books, which have won several awards and also been translated into Chinese, Korean, and Russian. These publications include Buddhism and Islam on the Silk Road, Our Great Qing: The Mongols, Buddhism and the State in Late Imperial China, and Uygur Buddhist Literature. He has also published in numerous journals such as Common Knowledge and the Journal of Asian Studies. Dr. Elverskog has been a research fellow at the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Studies, the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, and the Käte Hamburger Kolleg at Ruhr Universität.

About the contributors

Chang So-an is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica. Her publications include Gong Zizhen sixiang yanjiu (On the Thought of Gong Zizhen); Yi li dai li: Ling Tingkan yu Qing zhong ye ru xue si xiang zhi zhuan bian (Lin Tingkan and the Intellectual Transition from Heavenly Principles to Ritualist Thought); and Shi ba shi ji li xue kao zheng de si xiang huo li: li jiao lun zheng yu li zhi chong xing (The Vitality of Eighteenth-Century Evidential Research on Rituals: The Debates over Ritual Orthodoxy and Reconstruction of the Ritual Order) .

Benjamin Elman is Professor of East Asian Studies and History at Princeton University. He received the Distinguished Achievement Award from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in 2010. His publications include From Philosophy to Philology; Classicism, Politics, and Kinship; A Cultural History of Civil Examinations in Late Imperial China; On Their Own Terms: Science in China, 1550–1900; and A Cultural History of Modern Science in Late Imperial China. He has coedited Education and Society in Late Imperial China; Rethinking Confucianism; Statecraft and Classical Learning; Rethinking East Asian Languages, Vernaculars, and Literacies; Antiquarianism, Language, and Medical Philology; and World Philology.

James D. Frankel is Associate Professor of Cultural and Religious Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. His book, Rectifying God’s Name: Liu Zhi’s Translation of Monotheism and Islamic Ritual Law in Neo-Confucian China examines Chinese Islamic scholarship and literature of the early Qing period.

Stephen Roddy is Professor of East Asian literary and cultural studies at the University of San Francisco. His book, Literati Identity and Its Fictional Representations in Late Imperial China, examines several significant works of fiction in eighteenth-century China. His research centers on the nexus of literary and intellectual trends in eighteenth- and nineteenth-entury China and Japan.

Sun Jiang is Professor of History at Nanjing University. His publications include Kindai chugoku no kakumei to himitzukesya: chugoku kakumei no syakaisitekikenkyu, (Revolution and Secret Societies in Modern China: A Social History of the Chinese Revolution, 1895–1955); Kindai chugoku no shukyo, kesya to kenryoku (Religion, Society and Power in Modern China); and Chugoku no kindai o tou: Rekishi, kigoku to aidentiti (Questioning Chinese Modernity: History, Memory and Identity). He is the coeditor of Higashi Ajia ni okeru kindai chi no kukan no keisei (The formation of modern intellectual space in East Asia.

Wang Hui is Professor of Chinese Language and Literature at Tsinghua University. He is a leading member of China’s “New Left” intellectual movement and the former editor of Dushu, one of China’s most influential literary journals. In May of 2008, Foreign Policy named him one of the top 100 public intellectuals in the world. His publications in English include China’s New Order: Society, Politics and Economy in Transition; The Politics of Imaging Asia; The End of Revolution: China and the Limits of Modernity; China from Empire to Nation-State; and China’s Twentieth Century.

Chapter 1: Introduction (Minghui Hu and Johan Elverskog)

Part I: Cosmopolitan Empire

Chapter 2: Making Manchus and Muslims: Cosmopolitan Identities in Qing China (James Frankel)

Chapter 3: The Appointment of Tian Wenjing and Cosmopolitanism in Qing Provincial Government (R. Kent Guy)

Part II: Academic Visions

Chapter 4: From Special Methodologies to Cosmopolitan Vision (Chang So-an and Minghui Hu)

Chapter 5: Toward Buddhist Cosmopolitanism: The Pan-Asian Vision of Gong Zizhen (Stephen Roddy)

Part III: Contact and Exchange

Chapter 6: Kim Chong-hui (1786-1856): A Late Choson Korean Polymath in the Cosmopolitan World of Qing China (Benjamin Elman)

Chapter 7: Cultural Solidarity in Troubled Times: The Inspiration of Yu Yue (Stephen Roddy)

Part IV: Culture and Politics

Chapter 8: Did the Yellow Emperor Come from Babylonia? Debating the Origins of Chinese Civilization in East Asia (Sun Jiang and Minghui Hu)

Chapter 9: Why Culture?: The Great War and Du Yaquan’s Civilizational Discourse (Wang Hui and Minghui Hu)

References

Index