Suchergebnisse

Dans une Chine contemporaine engagée dans un très important renouveau du discours culturaliste, la langue et l'écriture, en tant que symboles essentialistes de l'identité chinoise, sont aussi l'objet d'enjeux politiques nationalistes. A partir de la querelle autour de la juste appellation à donner au virus du SARS, nous questionnons, dans une perspective historique, la dimension politique et idéologique des néologismes. Il s'agit surtout d'insister sur l'histoire transculturelle des concepts du monde intellectuel et culturel en Chine moderne, et de dépasser l'illusoire opposition discursive entre la posture universaliste et son double culturaliste.

Since the mid-1980s, China's intellectual and political world has been prey to a strong cultural nationalism which has tended to contest or to deny modern history and culture. This paper is a case study which brings to the fore the linguistic quarrel concerning the SARS epidemic which spread over China and part of the world during the Winter of 2002-2003. By discussing this discourse which balances between national identity affirmation and integration in a globalized world, we will try to overcome the triviality of this linguistic quarrel by replacing it in a broader political and historical perspective. This paper aims at insisting on the transcultural history of the modern Chinese cultural and intellectual lexicon helping to overcome the dominant and false discursive opposition between a universalist position and its culturalist counterpart.

Qu Qiubai (1899-1935), a Chinese revolutionary thinker of the May Fourth generation, developed a political critique of the Chinese cultural realm which he perceived as internally fragmented. He brought to the fore the cultural and linguistic rift between the Europeanized intellectual elites and the "masses". In the early nineteen thirties, as he reflected upon the coming into being of a common culture which would have to be both modern and popular, he was confronted with theoretical questions such as cultural colonialism, hybridity, and the lack of national identity. The singularity of his position lay in the tension between his marxian universalism and his geo-cultural decenteredness, as well as in a seemingly contradictory critique-cum-accomodation, of a europeanization of which he was himself the product. Qu Qiubai emphasized the idea of popularizing modernity and regarded it as a translation of European culture in the service of Chinese nation-building. ; Cet ouvrage se propose de présenter et de discuter les thèses de l'intellectuel révolutionnaire Qu Qiubai (1899-1935), militant et penseur de la modernité culturelle. Ecrits à Shanghai au début des années mil neuf cent trente, les essais analysés ici interrogent des problématiques liées à la culture populaire, à la question d'une langue commune et au phénomène d'« européanisation » de la Chine. Les écrits de Qu Qiubai témoignent du moment singulier où le processus de construction nationale, engagé depuis la fin du XIXe siècle, et confirmé ensuite avec Mao Zedong, n'avait pas encore constitué et uniformisé un espace culturel et linguistique homogène. Qu Qiubai pense le devenir culturel commun d'un sujet collectif, dispersé et hétérogène, dont le futur ne se réduirait pas à un devenir peuple ou nation et qui ne soit pas une uniformisation de type jacobine d'une culture nationale et/ou prolétarienne. Critique de l'idée de langue nationale, il imagine une « langue commune » dans une forme non standardisée, dialogique dans sa relation avec les dialectes locaux ...

Qu Qiubai (1899-1935), a Chinese revolutionary thinker of the May Fourth generation, developed a political critique of the Chinese cultural realm which he perceived as internally fragmented. He brought to the fore the cultural and linguistic rift between the Europeanized intellectual elites and the "masses". In the early nineteen thirties, as he reflected upon the coming into being of a common culture which would have to be both modern and popular, he was confronted with theoretical questions such as cultural colonialism, hybridity, and the lack of national identity. The singularity of his position lay in the tension between his marxian universalism and his geo-cultural decenteredness, as well as in a seemingly contradictory critique-cum-accomodation, of a europeanization of which he was himself the product. Qu Qiubai emphasized the idea of popularizing modernity and regarded it as a translation of European culture in the service of Chinese nation-building. ; Cet ouvrage se propose de présenter et de discuter les thèses de l'intellectuel révolutionnaire Qu Qiubai (1899-1935), militant et penseur de la modernité culturelle. Ecrits à Shanghai au début des années mil neuf cent trente, les essais analysés ici interrogent des problématiques liées à la culture populaire, à la question d'une langue commune et au phénomène d'« européanisation » de la Chine. Les écrits de Qu Qiubai témoignent du moment singulier où le processus de construction nationale, engagé depuis la fin du XIXe siècle, et confirmé ensuite avec Mao Zedong, n'avait pas encore constitué et uniformisé un espace culturel et linguistique homogène. Qu Qiubai pense le devenir culturel commun d'un sujet collectif, dispersé et hétérogène, dont le futur ne se réduirait pas à un devenir peuple ou nation et qui ne soit pas une uniformisation de type jacobine d'une culture nationale et/ou prolétarienne. Critique de l'idée de langue nationale, il imagine une « langue commune » dans une forme non standardisée, dialogique dans sa relation avec les dialectes locaux et qui intègre la problématique des classes sociales. Pourfendeur de la « Nouvelle culture » chinoise, « bourgeoise » et européanisée, il veut exploiter politiquement et rendre moderne la culture populaire en prenant en compte toute sa diversité. Il lit l'échec politique et social du mouvement communiste chinois (1927-1931) comme la conséquence de l'inachèvement de la révolution culturelle et appelle à la prise du « pouvoir culturel », comme Gramsci, à la même époque en Italie, écrivait sur l'« hégémonie culturelle » en tant que préalable à la prise du pouvoir politique. Dans son approche méthodologique, cette étude vise à mettre en évidence un auteur dont les thèses se sont trouvées minorées par une géopolitique de la connaissance et des disciplines masquant les productions théoriques du « non-Occident ». A la fois produits et critiques d'une modernité qui fut aussi une acculturation pour la Chine, les écrits de Qu Qiubai contestent toute possibilité d'invoquer une tradition intellectuelle « chinoise » et/ou « orientale » considérée dans son extériorité et dans sa différence avec un « Occident ». Si Qu Qiubai est aussi un théoricien chinois, nous le lisons ici d'abord comme un penseur de (dans) la modernité.

Qu Qiubai (1899-1935), a Chinese revolutionary thinker of the May Fourth generation, developed a political critique of the Chinese cultural realm which he perceived as internally fragmented. He brought to the fore the cultural and linguistic rift between the Europeanized intellectual elites and the "masses". In the early nineteen thirties, as he reflected upon the coming into being of a common culture which would have to be both modern and popular, he was confronted with theoretical questions such as cultural colonialism, hybridity, and the lack of national identity. The singularity of his position lay in the tension between his marxian universalism and his geo-cultural decenteredness, as well as in a seemingly contradictory critique-cum-accomodation, of a europeanization of which he was himself the product. Qu Qiubai emphasized the idea of popularizing modernity and regarded it as a translation of European culture in the service of Chinese nation-building. ; Cet ouvrage se propose de présenter et de discuter les thèses de l'intellectuel révolutionnaire Qu Qiubai (1899-1935), militant et penseur de la modernité culturelle. Ecrits à Shanghai au début des années mil neuf cent trente, les essais analysés ici interrogent des problématiques liées à la culture populaire, à la question d'une langue commune et au phénomène d'« européanisation » de la Chine. Les écrits de Qu Qiubai témoignent du moment singulier où le processus de construction nationale, engagé depuis la fin du XIXe siècle, et confirmé ensuite avec Mao Zedong, n'avait pas encore constitué et uniformisé un espace culturel et linguistique homogène. Qu Qiubai pense le devenir culturel commun d'un sujet collectif, dispersé et hétérogène, dont le futur ne se réduirait pas à un devenir peuple ou nation et qui ne soit pas une uniformisation de type jacobine d'une culture nationale et/ou prolétarienne. Critique de l'idée de langue nationale, il imagine une « langue commune » dans une forme non standardisée, dialogique dans sa relation avec les dialectes locaux et qui intègre la problématique des classes sociales. Pourfendeur de la « Nouvelle culture » chinoise, « bourgeoise » et européanisée, il veut exploiter politiquement et rendre moderne la culture populaire en prenant en compte toute sa diversité. Il lit l'échec politique et social du mouvement communiste chinois (1927-1931) comme la conséquence de l'inachèvement de la révolution culturelle et appelle à la prise du « pouvoir culturel », comme Gramsci, à la même époque en Italie, écrivait sur l'« hégémonie culturelle » en tant que préalable à la prise du pouvoir politique. Dans son approche méthodologique, cette étude vise à mettre en évidence un auteur dont les thèses se sont trouvées minorées par une géopolitique de la connaissance et des disciplines masquant les productions théoriques du « non-Occident ». A la fois produits et critiques d'une modernité qui fut aussi une acculturation pour la Chine, les écrits de Qu Qiubai contestent toute possibilité d'invoquer une tradition intellectuelle « chinoise » et/ou « orientale » considérée dans son extériorité et dans sa différence avec un « Occident ». Si Qu Qiubai est aussi un théoricien chinois, nous le lisons ici d'abord comme un penseur de (dans) la modernité.

The so-called 'intercultural' approach challenges the academic world's temptation to adopt a universal, metacultural locus of enonciation; it challenges the idea that we can hide our geo-cultural, our historical and even our linguistic positions to speak from a pure, scientific theoretical situation. This tension between a claim for theoretical universalism and the reality of local culturewas very strong in the 1930s among Chinese writers, and especially for a revolutionary intellectual such as Qu Qiubai (1899-1935), convinced by the universal dimension of Marxism in the face of Chinese local history and culture.

The so-called 'intercultural' approach challenges the academic world's temptation to adopt a universal, metacultural locus of enonciation; it challenges the idea that we can hide our geo-cultural, our historical and even our linguistic positions to speak from a pure, scientific theoretical situation. This tension between a claim for theoretical universalism and the reality of local culturewas very strong in the 1930s among Chinese writers, and especially for a revolutionary intellectual such as Qu Qiubai (1899-1935), convinced by the universal dimension of Marxism in the face of Chinese local history and culture.

The so-called 'intercultural' approach challenges the academic world's temptation to adopt a universal, metacultural locus of enonciation; it challenges the idea that we can hide our geo-cultural, our historical and even our linguistic positions to speak from a pure, scientific theoretical situation. This tension between a claim for theoretical universalism and the reality of local culturewas very strong in the 1930s among Chinese writers, and especially for a revolutionary intellectual such as Qu Qiubai (1899-1935), convinced by the universal dimension of Marxism in the face of Chinese local history and culture.

Focused on the politics of cultural identity in contemporary China, Yingjie Guo's monograph is a detailed study of a major recent phenomenon, which he names "cultural nationalism." The "cultural nationalists" whom he identifies are from diverse intellectual backgrounds and have different ideological orientations. However, as Guo tells us, they all share a common goal: "to substantiate and crystallize the idea of the ethnic nation in the minds of the members of the community by creating a wide-spread awareness of the myths, history, and linguistic tradition of the community" (p. 5). According to Guo, cultural nationalism is "a reaction against the May Fourth iconoclasm, together with its discourse of Enlightenment scientific rationality and the CCP's Marxist ideology" (p. 23).

International audience ; In a recent book, published after a series of conferences held in Japan, French philosopher Regis Debray makes a praise of "frontiers"1. His stand is polemical, paradoxical, and challenging in a world more and more influenced both by discourses on globalization and internationalization, as well as by an (inter)national withdrawal to (imagined) national traditions, beliefs, narratives. The polemical intent was effective, and the essay was received with many critics; of course we do not endorse a discourse that defines what is in and what is (or shall be) out; but it surprising how effective and potentially explosive every politically incorrect stand against a world without frontier could still resonate in a consensual intellectual milieu. The interesting point in Debray's essay is a re-evaluation of the borders; of course, not intended as seclusion or a closure, but as a source of (intellectual) pleasure: crossing a border could be an exciting experience, meant to fuel curiosity, to arouse questions and relativize a worldview that could become claustrophobic. The idea is to discuss and give nuance to a category too often given for granted.

International audience ; In a recent book, published after a series of conferences held in Japan, French philosopher Regis Debray makes a praise of "frontiers"1. His stand is polemical, paradoxical, and challenging in a world more and more influenced both by discourses on globalization and internationalization, as well as by an (inter)national withdrawal to (imagined) national traditions, beliefs, narratives. The polemical intent was effective, and the essay was received with many critics; of course we do not endorse a discourse that defines what is in and what is (or shall be) out; but it surprising how effective and potentially explosive every politically incorrect stand against a world without frontier could still resonate in a consensual intellectual milieu. The interesting point in Debray's essay is a re-evaluation of the borders; of course, not intended as seclusion or a closure, but as a source of (intellectual) pleasure: crossing a border could be an exciting experience, meant to fuel curiosity, to arouse questions and relativize a worldview that could become claustrophobic. The idea is to discuss and give nuance to a category too often given for granted.

International audience ; In a recent book, published after a series of conferences held in Japan, French philosopher Regis Debray makes a praise of "frontiers"1. His stand is polemical, paradoxical, and challenging in a world more and more influenced both by discourses on globalization and internationalization, as well as by an (inter)national withdrawal to (imagined) national traditions, beliefs, narratives. The polemical intent was effective, and the essay was received with many critics; of course we do not endorse a discourse that defines what is in and what is (or shall be) out; but it surprising how effective and potentially explosive every politically incorrect stand against a world without frontier could still resonate in a consensual intellectual milieu. The interesting point in Debray's essay is a re-evaluation of the borders; of course, not intended as seclusion or a closure, but as a source of (intellectual) pleasure: crossing a border could be an exciting experience, meant to fuel curiosity, to arouse questions and relativize a worldview that could become claustrophobic. The idea is to discuss and give nuance to a category too often given for granted.