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

From November 6 to 8, the University of Chicago Center in Beijing hosted Reassembling the Foreign: Transnational Perspectives on Twentieth-Century Chinese Culture, a three-day symposium bringing together scholars from universities and research institutions in China and abroad. The event opened on the evening of November 6 with a welcome dinner and a closed-door screening of Window to America (1952), followed by two days of academic panels featuring more than 20 participants. Spanning a range of historical periods, disciplines, and cultural forms, the symposium explored how foreign ideas, artistic practices, and intellectual traditions entered China, were interpreted and adapted, and acquired new meanings in different political and cultural contexts.

The first day of academic sessions explored the circulation and transformation of cultural forms, with a particular focus on cinema and media. Discussions examined how Chinese filmmakers engaged with foreign cinematic traditions and political narratives, including Soviet anti-imperialist thought and representations of the Korean War, as well as how traditional Chinese stories were reimagined in Japanese animation. Other presentations considered the circulation of audiovisual knowledge and technology in early socialist China.

The final day turned to the intellectual and political dimensions of transnational exchange. Presentations addressed the secular critique of religion in the writings of Lenin and Li Dazhao, Yan Lianke’s engagement with Dostoevsky, and the reception of Russian Formalism in Cold War Macau. Other discussions examined aesthetic autonomy in China and Poland, the transnational dimensions of debates on China’s Agrarian Question, and Zhang Dongsun’s theory of pluralism.

Taken together, the symposium offered a multifaceted account of twentieth-century Chinese culture, moving beyond national frameworks to examine the exchanges and encounters that shaped its development. By bringing scholars from different disciplines and research traditions into conversation, the event opened up new avenues for comparative inquiry and offered fresh perspectives on familiar questions. It also reflected the University of Chicago Center in Beijing’s ongoing commitment to fostering international academic exchange and creating opportunities for scholars to engage with China in a broader global context.