Dreams of a return to a golden age in remote antiquity were common tropes in imperial Chinese philosophy, literature and art. But such yearnings could also relate to the more recent past of a diffuse ‘Middle Period’ situated flexibly between the time of the legendary sage kings and the respective present. This article illustrates how evocations of this unwieldy era were re-signified through its association with Europe’s ‘Middle Ages’. Far from producing a unified image, the uneasy coupling opened up a space in between the normative poles of ‘antiquity’ and ‘modernity’ that served as a platform to negotiate competing visions of China’s past, present and future. Alternately romanticised or demonised, the Chinese medieval could be enlisted as a site of cultural nostalgia, social utopia or a tool of political propaganda. By reviewing a selection of these diverse uses, I aim to understand the limited but persistent appeal of medievalism in modern China. At the same time, I will explore what this example can teach us about the ways in which ‘colligatory concepts’ such as the Middle Ages and the obsessions that may be attached to them travel across cultural and linguistic boundaries.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AminoYoshihiko. 2012. Rethinking Japanese History. Ann Arbor, MI: Center for Japanese Studies, The University of Michigan.
2.
AnkersmitFranklin R.1994. History and Tropology: The Rise and Fall of Metaphor. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press.
3.
AshtonGailKlineDaniel T. (eds). 2012. Medieval Afterlives in Popular Culture. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
4.
BarrettT.H.1998. ‘China and the Redundancy of the Medieval’, The Medieval History Journal, vol. 1(1): 73–89.
5.
BeneschOleg. 2014. Inventing the Way of the Samurai: Nationalism, Internationalism, and Bushidō in Modern Japan. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
6.
BolPeter K.2008. ‘When Antiquity Matters: Thinking about and with Antiquity in the Tang–Song Transition’. In Perceptions of Antiquity in Chinese Civilization, edited by KuhnDieterStahlHelga. Heidelberg: Edition Forum: 209–35.
7.
BrookTimothy. 1998. ‘Medievality and the Chinese Sense of History’, The Medieval History Journal, vol. 1(1): 145–64.
8.
BrookTimothy. 1999. ‘Capitalism and the Writing of Modern History in China’. In China and Historical Capitalism: Genealogies of Sinological Knowledge, edited by BrookTimothyBlueGregory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 110–57.
9.
ChakrabartyDipesh. 2000. Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
10.
ChenHuaiyu陳懷宇. 2015. Zai xifang faxian Chen Yinke: Zhongguo jindai renwenxue de dongfangxue yu xixue de beijing 在西方發現陳寅恪：中國近代人文學的東方學與西學的背景 (Discovering Chen Yinke in the West: Modern Chinese Humanities and Their Background in Oriental and Western Studies). Hong Kong: Sanlian shudian.
11.
ChenYinke陳寅恪. [1933] 2000. ‘Feng YoulanZhongguo zhexueshi xiace shencha baogao’ 馮友蘭中國哲學史下冊審查報告 (Report on my Inspection of vol. 2 of Feng Youlan’s History of Chinese Philosophy), in Chen Yinke ji 陳寅恪集 (The Works of Chen Yinke), vol. 2. Beijing: Sanlian shudian: 282–86.
12.
ChenYinke陳寅恪. [1944] 2001. Sui-Tang zhidu yuanyuan lüelun gao 隋唐制度淵源略論稿 (Draft of a Brief Study of the Origins of the Sui–Tang Political System), in Chen Yinke ji 陳寅恪集 (The Works of Chen Yinke), vol. 3. Beijing: Sanlian shudian: 1–176.
13.
ChenYinke陳寅恪. [1943] 2001. Tangdai zhengzhishi shulun gao 唐代政治史述論稿 (Draft for a Political History of the Tang Period), in Chen Yinke ji陳寅恪集 (The Works of Chen Yinke), vol. 3. Beijing: Sanlian shudian: 177–355.
14.
ConradSebastian. 2012. ‘Enlightenment in Global History: A Historiographical Critique’, The American Historical Review, vol. 117(4): 999–1027.
15.
DavisKathleen. 2008. Periodization and Sovereignty: How Ideas of Feudalism and Secularization Govern the Politics of Time. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
16.
DavisKathleenAltschulNadia (eds). 2009. Medievalisms in the Postcolonial World: The Idea of the ‘Middle Ages’ Outside Europe. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
17.
DesForges Roger. 2005. ‘Toward Another Zhou or Tang? Views from the Central Plain during the Shunzhi Reign’. In Time, Temporality, and Imperial Transition: East Asia from Ming to Qing, edited by Lynn A. Struve. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press: 73–112.
18.
DirlikArif. 2015. ‘Marxism and Social History’. In Transforming History: The Making of a Modern Academic Discipline in Twentieth-century China, edited by ZarrowPeterMoloughneyBrian. Hong Kong: The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press: 375–402.
19.
DufaysJean-Michel. 1987. ‘La place du concept de «moyen âge» dans l’historiographie’, Revue belge de philologie et d’histoire, vol. 65(2): 257–73.
20.
EberIrene. 1968. ‘Hu Shih and Chinese History: The Problem of Cheng-li Kuo-ku’, Monumenta Serica, vol. 27: 169–207.
21.
EcoUmberto. 1986. ‘The Return of the Middle Ages’, in hisTravels in Hyperreality: Essays. New York, NY: Harcourt: 59–85.
22.
EmmerichReinhard. 2009. ‘Periodisation of Chinese History’. In Brill’s Encyclopedia of China, edited by LeeseDaniel. Leiden: Brill:
23.
FairbankJohn K.EdwinO. ReischauerAlbertCraig. 1964. East Asia: The Modern Transformation, 2 vols. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
24.
FogelJoshua A.1984. Politics and Sinology: The Case of Naitō Konan (1886–1934). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
25.
GadamerHans-Georg. [1960] 2011. Wahrheit und Methode. Berlin: Akademie Verlag.
26.
GanimJohn M.2000. ‘Native Studies: Orientalism and Medievalism’. In The Postcolonial Middle Ages, edited by CohenJeffrey Jerome. New York, NY: Palgrave: 123–34.
27.
GoodyJack. 2010. Renaissances: The One or the Many?Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
28.
GruzinskiSerge. 1988. La colonisation de l’imaginaire. Paris: Gallimard.
29.
HammJohn Christopher. 2006. Paper Swordsmen: Jin Yong and the Modern Chinese Martial Arts Novel. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press.
30.
HartogFrançois. 2002. Régimes d’historicité. Présentisme et expériences du temps. Paris: Seuil.
31.
HolcombeCharles. 2017. ‘Was Medieval China Medieval? (Post-Han to Mid-Tang)’. In A Companion to Chinese History, edited by Michael Szonyi. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley: 106–17.
32.
HolmesCatherineStandenNaomi. 2015. ‘Defining the Global Middle Ages’, Medieval Worlds, vol. 1: 106–17.
33.
HonTze-ki. 1996. ‘Ethnic and Cultural Pluralism: Gu Jiegang’s Vision of a New China in His Studies of Ancient History’, Modern China, vol. 22(3): 315–39.
34.
HonTze-ki. 2004. ‘Cultural Identity and Local Self-government: A Study of Liu Yizheng’sHistory of Chinese Culture’, Modern China, vol. 30(4): 506–42.
35.
HonTze-ki. 2015. The Allure of the Nation: The Cultural and Historical Debates in Late Qing and Republican China. Leiden: Brill.
36.
HsiaoKung-chuan. 1975. A Modern China and a New World: Kang Yu-wei, Reformer and Utopian, 1858–1927. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press.
37.
HuShi 胡適. [1932] 1998. Zhongguo zhonggu sixiang xiaoshi 中國中古思想小史 (Brief History of Medieval Chinese Thought), in his Hu Shi wenji 胡適文集 (Collected Works of Hu Shi), edited by ZheshengOuyang 欧阳哲生, vol. 6. Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe: 629–70.
38.
HuShih [Hu Shi]. [1937] 2013. ‘The Indianization of China: A Case Study in Cultural Borrowing’, in his English Writings of Hu Shih. Vol. 2: Chinese Philosophy and Intellectual History, edited by ChouChih-p’ing. Heidelberg: Springer: 147–63.
39.
JencoLeigh K. Forthcoming. ‘Can the Chinese Nation Be One? Gu Jiegang, Chinese Muslims, and the Reworking of Culturalism’, Modern China.
40.
KeirsteadThomas. 1998. ‘Inventing Medieval Japan: The History and Politics of National Identity’, The Medieval History Journal, vol. 1(1): 47–71.
41.
KinoshitaSharon. 2007. ‘Deprovincializing the Middle Ages’. In The Worlding Project: Doing Cultural Studies in the Era of Globalization, edited by WilsonRobConneryChristopher Leigh. Santa Cruz, CA: New Pacific Press: 75–89.
42.
KnappKeith N.2007. ‘Did the Middle Kingdom Have a Middle Period? The Problem of the “Medieval” in China’s History’, Education About Asia, vol. 12(3): 12–17.
43.
KuoYa-pei. 2014. ‘Temporality of Knowledge and History Writing in Early Twentieth-century China: Liu Yizheng andA History of Chinese Culture’. In The Challenge of Linear Time: Nationhood and the Politics of History in East Asia, edited by MurthyVirenSchneiderAxel. Leiden: Brill: 277–92.
44.
KuukkanenJouni-Matti. 2015. Post-narrativist Philosophy of Historiography. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
45.
KwongLuke S.K.2001. ‘The Rise of the Linear Perspective on History and Time in Late Qing China c. 1860–1911’, Past & Present, vol. 173(1): 157–90.
46.
LiangQichao梁啟超. [1901] 1936. ‘Zhongguoshi xulun’ 中國史緒論 (Prolegomena to a History of China), in his Yinbingshi wenji 飲冰室文集 (Collected Works from the Ice Drinker’s Studio), edited by ZhijunLin 林志鈞. Shanghai: Zhonghua shuju: juan6:1–12.
47.
LiuYizheng劉詒徵 (trans.). [1902] 1905. Lidai shilüe 歷代史略 (A Brief Account of Successive Dynasties), 8 vols. Nanjing: Jiangchu shuju.
48.
LiuYizheng. [1932] 2001. Zhongguo wenhuashi 中國文化史 (A History of Chinese Culture). Shanghai: Guji chubanshe.
49.
LuoZhitian羅志田. 2004. ‘You jiao wu lei: Zhonggu wenhua yu zhengzhi de hudong—du Chen Yinke Sui-Tang liang lun zhaji’ 有教無類：中古文化與政治的互動—讀陳寅恪隋唐兩論札記 (Education Matters, Not Race: Interactions between Culture and Politics in Medieval [China]—Reading Notes on Two Works by Chen Yinke on the Sui and Tang Dynasties), Shehui kexue, no. 2: 123–32.
50.
MiyakawaHisayuki. 1955. ‘An Outline of the Naito Hypothesis and Its Effects on Japanese Studies of China’, Far Eastern Quarterly, vol. 14(4): 533–52.
51.
NaitōKonan內藤湖南. [1914] 2013. Shinaron 支那論 (On China). Tokyo: Bungei shunjū.
52.
NakaMichiyo那珂通世. 1888–1890. Shina tsūshi 支那通史 (Comprehensive History of China), 4 vols. Tokyo: Chūōdō.
53.
PetersonWillard J.1982. ‘Making Connections: “Commentary on the Attached Verbalizations” of theBook of Change’, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, vol. 42(1): 67–116.
54.
PooMu-chou. 2008. ‘The Formation of the Concept of Antiquity in China’. In Perceptions of Antiquity in Chinese Civilization, edited by KuhnDieterStahlHelga. Heidelberg: Edition Forum: 85–101.
55.
ReuterTimothy. 1998. ‘Medieval: Another Tyrannous Concept?’ The Medieval History Journal, vol. 1(1): 25–45.
56.
RobinsonFred C.1984. ‘Medieval, the Middle Ages’, Speculum, vol. 59(4): 745–56.
57.
SaussyHaun. 2000. ‘Correlative Cosmology and Its Histories’, Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, vol. 72: 13–28.
58.
SchildgenBrenda D.GangZhouGilmanSander L. (eds). 2006. Other Renaissances: A New Approach to World Literature. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
59.
SchmidAndre. 2002. Korea Between Empires, 1895–1919. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
60.
SchneiderAxel. 1997. Wahrheit und Geschichte: Zwei chinesische Historiker auf der Suche nach einer modernen Identität für China. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.
61.
SchneiderAxel. 2014. ‘Nation, History and Ethics: The Choices of Post-Imperial Historiography in China’. In The Challenge of Linear Time: Nationhood and the Politics of History in East Asia, edited by MurthyVirenSchneiderAxel. Leiden: Brill: 83–111.
62.
SheelKamal. 2014. ‘Hu Shih and the “Indianisation of China”: Some Comments on Modern Chinese Discourses on India’, China Report, vol. 50(3): 177–88.
63.
SpivakGayatri C.2008. Other Asias. Oxford: Blackwell.
64.
SuleimanSusan Rubin (ed.). 2006. ‘The Idea of Europe’, Comparative Literature, vol. 58(4).
65.
Sun Yongru 孫永如. 1993. Liu Yizheng pingzhuan 劉詒徵評傳 (A Critical Biography of Liu Yizheng). Nanchang: Baihuazhou wenyi chubanshe.
WalshWilliam H.1974. ‘Colligatory Concepts in History’. In The Philosophy of History, edited by GardinerPatrick L.Oxford: Oxford University Press: 127–44.
69.
WangDavid Der-wei. 1997. Fin-de-siècle Splendor: Repressed Modernities of Late Qing Fiction, 1849–1911. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
70.
WangHui. 汪暉2004. Xiandai Zhongguo sixiang de xingqi 現代中國思想的興起 (The Rise of Modern Chinese Thought), 4 vols. Beijing: Sanlian shudian.
71.
WangJing. 1996. High Culture Fever: Politics, Aesthetics, and Ideology in Deng’s China. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
72.
WangRongzu汪榮祖. 1984. Shijia Chen Yinke zhuan 史家陳寅恪傳 (A Biography of the Historian Chen Yinke). Taibei: Lianjing chuban gongsi.
73.
WangXianshen王先慎 (ed.). 2003. Han Feizi jijie 韓非子集解 (Collected Explanations to the Han Feizi). Beijing: Zhonghua shuju.
74.
WilhelmRichard. (trans.) 1967. The I Ching or Book of Change. [English translation by Cary F. Baynes, third edition]. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
75.
WongCynthia P.2011. ‘“A Dream Return to Tang Dynasty”: Masculinity, Male Cameraderie, and Chinese Heavy Metal in the 1990s’. In Metal Rules the Globe: Heavy Metal Music Around the World, edited by WallachJeremyBergerHarris M.GreenePaul D.Durham, NC: Duke University Press: 63–85.
76.
XiaZengyou夏曾佑. 1904–1906. Zuixin zhongxue Zhongguo lishi jiaokeshu 最新中學中國歷史教科書 (Most Recent Middle School Textbook for Chinese History), 3 vols. Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan.
77.
ZarrowPeter. 2015a. Educating China: Knowledge, Society, and Textbooks in a Modernizing World, 1902–1937. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
78.
ZarrowPeter. 2015b. ‘Discipline and Narrative: Chinese History Textbooks in the Early Twentieth Century’. In Transforming History: The Making of a Modern Academic Discipline in Twentieth-century China, edited by ZarrowPeterMoloughneyBrian. Hong Kong: The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press: 169–208.
79.
ZhuWeizheng朱維錚. 1987. Zou chu zhong shiji 走出中世紀 (Coming out of the Middle Ages). Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe.
80.
ZhuWeizheng朱維錚. 1990. Coming out of the Middle Ages: Comparative Reflections on China and the West. Translated and edited by Ruth Hayhoe. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.
