Title

Civilization and competition : study societies and state formation in late Qing China

Document Type

Journal article

Source Publication

Social and Cultural Research Occasional Paper Series

Publication Date

12-1-2010

Issue

10

Publisher

Center of Qualitative Social Research, Hong Kong Shue Yan University; Center for East Asian Studies, Pace University

Abstract

The institutional platforms that supported activist intellectuals seeking to inaugurate political and cultural modernity through the formation of study societies (xuehui) proliferated throughout the late Qing China (ca. 1895- 1911). While existing studies either subsume this distinctive phenomenon under the political programs of reform and revolutionary movements or conceive it as a kind of the prototypical formation of civil society and the public sphere in late Qing China, they seldom question the meanings and functions of ‘civilization,” “society” and “civility” as the constitutive and highly contested notions underlying the cultural and political practices of these study societies. This paper argues that the symbolic and practical aspects of this phenomenon can be better understood as a sociological process of state formation. By generalizing Norbert Elias’ analysis of the relationship between power figuration and affective self-constraint in Europe’s transition from an absolutist “court society” to an imperialist “world society,” this paper explains why and how these study societies arose as a civilizing movement within the context of Chinese social and cultural politics of the late nineteenth century.

Print ISSN

19966784

Publisher Statement

The appearance of this paper does not preclude later publication in revised version in an academic journal or book.

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Full-text Version

Publisher’s Version

Language

English

Recommended Citation

Chen, H.-F. (2010). Civilization and competition: Study societies and state formation in late Qing China. (Social and cultural research: occasional paper, no.10). Hong Kong: Hong Kong Shue Yan University; New York: Pace University.

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