Reassembling the Foreign: Transnational Perspectives on Twentieth Century Chinese Culture

The University of Chicago Center in Beijing

20th floor, Culture Plaza
No. 59A Zhong Guan Cun Street
Haidian District Beijing 100872

异质经验的重组：跨国视野下的二十世纪中国文化

The development of twentieth-century Chinese culture was inseparable from its encounters with the foreign amid shifting political alignments and power dynamics. Far from passive reception or simple resistance, these encounters involved ongoing processes of selection and adaptation. Ideas and forms acquired new meanings as they were translated and incorporated into local cultural projects. At the same time, Chinese culture itself went through transformation as it circulated transnationally. Moving beyond the familiar model of influence and response, Reassembling the Foreign approaches cultural exchange as a process of reassembly, through which the foreign is reconfigured, opening new possibilities of thought and cultural production.