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Books > Biography > Historical, political & military
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Gu Hongming's Eccentric Chinese Odyssey (Hardcover)
Loot Price: R1,693
Discovery Miles 16 930
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Gu Hongming's Eccentric Chinese Odyssey (Hardcover)
Series: Encounters with Asia
Expected to ship within 10 - 15 working days
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Known for his ultraconservatism and eccentricity, Gu Hongming
(1857-1928) remains one of the most controversial figures in modern
Chinese intellectual history. A former member of the colonial elite
from Penang who was educated in Europe, Gu, in his late twenties,
became a Qing loyalist and Confucian spokesman who also defended
concubinage, footbinding, and the queue. Seen as a reactionary by
his Chinese contemporaries, Gu nevertheless gained fame as an
Eastern prophet following the carnage of World War I, often paired
with Rabindranath Tagore and Leo Tolstoy by Western and Japanese
intellectuals. Rather than resort to the typical conception of Gu
as an inscrutable eccentric, Chunmei Du argues that Gu was a
trickster-sage figure who fought modern Western civilization in a
time dominated by industrial power, utilitarian values, and
imperialist expansion. A shape-shifter, Gu was by turns a
lampooning jester, defying modern political and economic systems
and, at other times, an avenging cultural hero who denounced
colonial ideologies with formidable intellect, symbolic
performances, and calculated pranks. A cultural amphibian, Gu
transformed from an "imitation Western man" to "a Chinaman again,"
and reinterpreted, performed, and embodied "authentic Chineseness"
in a time when China itself was adopting the new identity of a
modern nation-state. Gu Hongming's Eccentric Chinese Odyssey is the
first comprehensive study in English of Gu Hongming, both the
private individual and the public cultural figure. It examines the
controversial scholar's intellectual and psychological journeys
across geographical, national, and cultural boundaries in new
global contexts. In addition to complicating existing studies of
Chinese conservatism and global discussions on civilization around
the World War I era, the book sheds new light on the contested
notion of authenticity within the Chinese diaspora and the
psychological impact of colonialism.
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