Title: Sources of East Asian Modernity: China and Chinese overseas, c. 1890s-1930s

Name of convenor: Dr Rachel Leow (rl341)

Chen Chudian (2015) Dr Sun Yat-sen in Chinatown, Singapore.

Course description:This Special Subject is situated at the turn of the twentieth century, when the history of China andthe history of Chinese communities overseas, long inseparable, began to be transformed by world-historical developments of globalization, imperialism and accelerating interconnection: a nexus ofconditions often referred to as a period of ‘modernity’ in Asia. Recognizing that one of the legaciesof decolonization and the Cold War has been to parcel out previously interconnected regional histo-ries into nationalist historiographies, the paper seeks to look beyond nation in attempting to under-stand the dimensions of cultural and intellectual change precipitated by these encounters withmodernity. It takes as its historical subjects Chinese communities across China and Southeast Asia,and seeks to understand the challenges to cultural identity they faced, the ideas and visions of com-peting socio-political formations articulated at key moments in their shared histories, and the rootsof the divergent nationalisms that would be their fates by mid-century. Amidst the great changesthat characterize the globalizing fin de siecle and the early interwar years, how did Asian men andwomen begin to devise new ideas of self, state, society and the world that might permit participationin projects of modernity without losing their hold on a stable sense of their cultural selves? Uponwhat sources -- old and new, foreign and domestic -- did they draw in order to do so? What newroutes of political, personal and social action were sought to pursue and enact their modern visions,and what struggles were faced in doing so?

Michaelmas classes will proceed chronologically to provide historical background to the significantescalation of Chinese migration to Southeast Asia from the mid-nineteenth century. The history ofChinese migration abroad goes back a thousand years, to merchants from southern China who so-journed frequently to the great cities of Southeast Asia in search of new opportunities beyond thesouthern frontiers of the Chinese littoral. The expansion of Europe in the sixteenth century marked a

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transitional phase. Foreign imperialism in China, as well as domestic turbulence in the mid to lateQing, destabilized daily life and immiserated many, encouraging them to pursue opportunitiesabroad. The expanding European presence in Southeast Asia also generated new demands for labourto feed the complexes of capitalism emerging in new colonial economies: plantations, mines, fields,and eventually, colonial offices. These created the conditions for massive emigration, by somecounts over 20 million, by the beginning of our period in the late 19th century. Topics in Michael-mas term will give attention to structures of community and kinship organization, identity forma-tion, imperial governance, commercial networks, and the fluctuating nature of these communities’relationships with China and Euro-American hegemony in the region.

Lent term moves to critically locate and assess the role which Chinese individuals and groupsplayed in the emergence of new ideas and debates in early twentieth century Southeast Asia aroundquestions of progress, nationalism, social justice, race, democracy and cultural authenticity. Classeswill examine key moments in the shared histories of China and Chinese overseas, among them the1898 reform movement, the 1911 revolution and the 1919 May Fourth movement. Source readingsand texts introduce students to some of the major ideological and cultural transformations that thelate 19th century and early 20th century brought to the region, including revolutions in culture, poli-tics and gender. These will be further explored in the second half of Lent term, which brings a hand-ful of individual thinkers, writers and actors into view, situating their writings within the currents ofextraordinary change through which they lived.

Mode of teaching:The paper is taught in 2 hour classes once a week throughout Michaelmas and Lent, combining lec-tures and small group discussion around key readings and primary sources. Gobbet practice classestake place throughout the paper, and you will be expected to write ‘reading responses’ to the setreadings each week. Revision classes take place in Easter term. There will be one or two filmevents.

Proposed class schedule:

MICHAELMASI: Historical background: Connected histories of China and Southeast Asia

Week 1. To the South SeasWeek 2. Geographies of encounterWeek 3. Emigration in a global ageII: Historical background: Chinese communities in Southeast Asia

Week 4. FamiliesWeek 5. SubjectsWeek 6. SettlersWeek 7. RejectsWeek 8. CreolesLENTIII: Chinese flashpoints, global moments

Week 1. 1898Week 2. 1905Week 3. 1911Week 4. 1919

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IV. Inter-Asian dialogues: Locating modernity in China and Southeast Asia

Week 5. CultureWeek 6. RevolutionWeek 7. GenderWeek 8. Translation

EASTER Four revision classes and general discussion.

Indicative reading listThe most up to date reading list, as well as PDFs of all required readings, will be available on Moo-dle. Below is a list of indicative secondary reading, which will be heavier in Michaelmas than inLent.

Primary sources are varied. In Michaelmas, sources include: imperial edicts on Chinese migration,excerpts from Chinese travel writing and geographical treatises on Southeast Asia, migrant folk-songs, remittance letters and memoirs, documentation from colonial archives on the managementand policing of Chinese communities, and photographs and images of people, clothing, architecture,food and other subjects. In Lent, the emphasis will be weighted toward textual primary sources;these will feature key writings by participants in the movements being studied, such as essays, ob-servational writings and fiction, and in the second half of the term, on letters and programmaticwritings of prominent individuals.

No prior knowledge of the subject matter is assumed, nor is Chinese a language requirement.

General overviewsSteven B. Miles, Chinese Diasporas: A Social History of Global Migration (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 2020).

Philip Kuhn, Chinese Among Others: Emigration in Modern Times (Lanham: Rowman & LittlefieldPublishers, 2008).

Chin-Keong Ng, Boundaries and Beyond: China’s Maritime Southeast in Late Imperial Times(Chicago: National University of Singapore Press, 2017).

Adam McKeown, Melancholy Order: Asian Migration and the Globalization of Borders (NewYork: Columbia University Press, 2011).

Adam McKeown, Chinese Migrant Networks and Cultural Change: Peru, Chicago, Hawaii,1900-1936 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001).

Elizabeth Sinn, Pacific Crossing: California Gold, Chinese Migration, and the Making of HongKong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2013).

Sunil Amrith, Migration and Diaspora in Modern Asia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,2011).

Ta Chen, Emigrant Communities in South China: A Study of Overseas Migration and Its Influenceon Standards of Living and Social Change (Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh, 1939).

Gregor Benton, and Hong Liu, Dear China: Emigrant Letters and Remittances, 1820-1980 (Berke-ley: University of California Press, 2018).

Anthony Reid, and Kristine Alilunas-Rodgers, eds. Sojourners and Settlers: Histories of SoutheastChina and the Chinese (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1996).

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Huifen Shen, China’s Left-Behind Wives: Families of Migrants From Fujian to Southeast Asia,1930s-1950s (Singapore: NUS Press, 2012).

Michael R Godley, The Mandarin-Capitalists From Nanyang: Overseas Chinese Enterprise in theModernisation of China 1893-1911 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).

Shelly Chan, Diaspora’s Homeland: Modern China in the Age of Global Migration (Durham: DukeUniversity Press, 2018).

Colonialism, China and the Chinese: Amidst Empires (Abingdon: Routledge, 2020).

Chee-Beng Tan, Colin Storey, and Julia Zimmerman, eds. Chinese Overseas: Migration, Researchand Documentation (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2007).

Histories of Chinese communities in Southeast AsiaEdgar Wickberg, The Chinese in Philippine Life, 1850-1898 (Manila: Ateneo University Press,1965).

Leonard Blussé, Strange Company: Chinese Settlers, Mestizo Women, and the Dutch in Voc Batavia(Dordrecht: Foris Publications, 1986).

Richard Chu, Chinese and Chinese Mestizos of Manila: Family, Identity and Culture, 1860s-1930s(Leiden: Brill, 2010).

Mary Somers Heidhues, Golddiggers, Farmers, and Traders in the “Chinese Districts” of WestKalimantan, Indonesia, vol. 34 (SEAP Publications, 2003).

Chee-Beng Tan, The Baba of Melaka: Culture and Identity of a Chinese Peranakan Community inMalaysia (Petaling Jaya: Pelanduk Publications, 1988).

Ching-hwang Yen, A Social History of the Chinese in Singapore and Malaya, 1800-1911 (Oxford:Oxford University Press, 1986).

Lea E. Williams, Overseas Chinese Nationalism: The Genesis of the Pan-Chinese Movement in In-donesia, 1900-1916 (Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1960).

Jiemin Bao, Marital Acts: Gender, Sexuality, and Identity Among the Chinese Thai Diaspora (Hon-olulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2005).

Karen M. Teoh, Schooling Diaspora: Women, Education, and the Overseas Chinese in BritishMalaya and Singapore, 1850s-1960s (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

Jennifer Wayne Cushman, Fields From the Sea: Chinese Junk Trade With Siam During the LateEighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993).

Caroline Hau, The Chinese Question: Ethnicity, Nation, and Region in and Beyond the Philippines(Singapore: NUS Press, 2014).

Ronald G. Knapp, and A. Chester. Ong, Chinese Houses of Southeast Asia: Eclectic Architecture ofthe Overseas Chinese Diaspora (London: Tuttle Publishing, 2013).

Early twentieth century social and cultural change in East AsiaSebastian Conrad, and Dominic Sachsenmaier, eds. Competing Visions of World Order: Global Mo-ments and Movements, 1880s-1930s (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).

Joan Judge, The Precious Raft of History: The Past, the West, and the Woman Question in China(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008).

Timothy Cheek, ‘The Intellectual in Modern Chinese History,’ (2016).

Sugata Bose, and Kris Manjapra, Cosmopolitan Thought Zones: South Asia and the Global Circula-tion of Ideas (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).

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T N Harper, and Sunil Amrith, Sites of Asian Interaction: Ideas, Networks and Mobility (Cam-bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014).

Lydia Liu, Translingual Practice: Literature, National Culture, and Translated Modernity - China,1900-1937 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995).

Rebecca Karl, and Peter Zarrow, Rethinking the 1898 Reform Period: Political and CulturalChange in Late Qing China, vol. Harvard Ea (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center,2002).

Paula Harrell, Sowing the Seeds of Change: Chinese Students, Japanese Teachers, 1895-1905 (Stan-ford Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1992).

Ahmat Adam, The Vernacular Press and the Emergence of Modern Indonesian Consciousness,1855-1913 (Ithaca N.Y.: Southeast Asia Program Cornell University, 1995).

Guanhua Wang, In Search of Justice: The 1905-1906 Chinese Anti-American Boycott, vol. 204(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2001).

Cemil Aydin, The Politics of Anti-Westernism in Asia: Visions of World Order in Pan-Islamic andPan-Asian Thought (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007).

Frank Dikötter, The Discourse of Race in Modern China (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015).

Michael Keevak, Becoming Yellow: A Short History of Racial Thinking (Princeton: Princeton Uni-versity Press, 2011).

Ching-hwang Yen, The Overseas Chinese and the 1911 Revolution: With Special Reference to Sin-gapore and Malaya (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1976).

Shinkichi Eto, and Harold Z. Schiffrin, eds. China’s Republican Revolution (Tokyo: University ofTokyo Press, 1994).

Takashi Shiraishi, An Age in Motion: Popular Radicalism in Java, 1912-1926 (Ithaca: Cornell Uni-versity Press, 1990).

Karl Gerth, China Made: Consumer Culture and the Creation of the Nation (Cambridge Mass.:Harvard University Asia Center, 2004).

David Kenley, New Culture in a New World: The May Fourth Movement and the Chinese Diasporain Singapore, 1919-1932 (New York: Routledge, 2003).

Erez Manela, The Wilsonian Moment: Self-Determination and the International Origins of Anticolo-nial Nationalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).

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April 2021