Liberal Cosmopolitan: Lin Yutang and Middling Chinese Modernity (Ideas, History, and Modern China)

This book is a cross-cultural critique on the problem of the liberal cosmopolitan in modern Chinese intellectuality in light of Lin Yutang s literary and cultural practices across China and America. It points to the desirability of a middling Chinese modernity." Contents Acknowledgments Chapter One Introduction: Re-Discovering Lin Yutang in the Post-Mao Era Chapter Two Chinese Modernity: Nationalism, Imperialism, and the Liberal Cosmopolitan Alternative Chapter Three Enlightenment and National Salvation: The Politics of a Liberal Nationalist Chapter Four “Little Critic:” “Returned” Professionals and the Cosmopolitan Modern Chapter Five A Cross-Cultural Aesthetics of Life: Translating “Xingling” into “Self-Expression,” “Xianshi” into “Leisure,” and “Humor” into “Youmo” Chapter Six Oriental Other: The Business of Translating Chinese and American Cultures Chapter Seven Cosmopolitan Difference: Critique of Imperialism and Debating “Chinahands” Chapter Eight Conclusion: What a Liberal Cosmopolitan Alternative Means for Contemporary Chinese Intellectual Dilemma Appendix Chronology of Lin Yutang (林语堂) Works Cited Character List Index Chinese modernity discourses have been dominated by nationalism and revolutionary radicalism in much of the 20th century, but liberal cosmopolitanism has always been an important force in modern Chinese intellectuality, though a much neglected topic in modern Chinese studies. This book is a cross-cultural critique on the problem of the liberal cosmopolitan in modern Chinese intellectuality in light of Lin Yutang's literary and cultural practices across China and America. It includes comparative reference to other discourses of major literary and intellectual figures such as Zhang Zhidong, Liang Qichao, Gu Hongming, Hu Shi, Lu Xun, Zhou Zuoren, Pearl S. Buck, Agnes Smedley and Edgar Snow. It also demonstrates that a liberal cosmopolitan road, which suggests a middling Chinese modernity, is both possible and desirable