Remembering May Fourth

Remembering May Fourth: The Movement and its Centennial Legacy discusses a wide range of issues concerning the relations between politics and memory, writing and ritualizing, fiction and reality, and theory and practice within the context of the May Fourth movement.

This book examines how the early twentieth-century Irish Renaissance (Irish Literary Revival) inspired the Chinese Renaissance (the May Fourth generation) of writers to make agentic choices and translingual exchanges. It sheds a new light on “May Fourth” and on the Irish Renaissance by establishing that the Irish Literary Revival (1900-1922) provided an alternative decolonizing model of resistance for the Chinese Renaissance to that provided by the western imperial center. The book also argues that Chinese May Fourth intellectuals translated Irish Revivalist plays by W. B. Yeats, Lady Gregory, Seán O’Casey and Synge and that Chinese peasants performed these plays throughout China during the 1920s and 1930s as a form of anti-imperial resistance. Yet this literary exchange was not simply going one way, since Yeats, Lady Gregory, Synge and O’Casey were also influenced by Chinese developments in literature and politics. Therefore this was a reciprocal encounter based on the circulation of Anti-colonial ideals and mutual transformation.

This symposium commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of the May Fourth Movement of 1919 in China. This volume contains six essays on various aspects of the movement.

This book looks at China’s May Fourth Movement and how it has been contextualised in modern Chinese history. Tracing the roots of the movement and of modern Chinese literary and intellectual traditions, the book analyses how the movement transformed ideas, culture, and social practices in the country. The volume presents a critical in-depth study of the May Fourth Movement from interdisciplinary perspectives. With essays written by scholars and experts from India, China, and the West, it discusses concepts and themes such as nationalism; the citizen and revolutionary morality in the late Qing dynasty as well as Lu Xun’s struggle with the aporetic temporalities of capitalist modernity; the May Fourth spirit and the Communist Party of China; the birth of the ‘New Woman’; and the literature, cinema, and art produced during the movement. It also examines how the waves created by the movement in Chinese culture and society continue to influence and shape events and thoughts in contemporary times. This book will be of interest to scholars and researchers of Chinese Studies, Chinese history, Asian Studies, Asian history, political history, and cultural history.

Touches of History represents a groundbreaking attempt to return to a study of “May Fourth” that is solidly grounded in historical fact. Favouring smaller stories over grand narratives, concentrating on unknown, marginal materials rather than familiar key documents, and highlighting “May Fourth”’s indebtedness to the cultural debates of the preceding late Qing period, Chen Pingyuan reconstructs part of the actual historical scenery, demonstrating the great variety of ideas expressed during those tumultuous decades.

"For much of the twentieth century, the May Fourth movement of 1919 was seen as the foundational moment of modernity in China. Recent examinations of literary and cultural modernity in China have, however, led to a questioning of this view. By approaching May Fourth from novel perspectives, the authors of the eight studies in this volume seek to contribute to the ongoing critique of the movement. The essays are centered on the intellectual and cultural/historical motivations and practices behind May Fourth discourse and highlight issues such as strategies of discourse formation, scholarly methodologies, rhetorical dispositions, the manipulation of historical sources, and the construction of modernity by means of the reification of China’s literary past."

Discover how to navigate the spiral energy patterns of the Universe for spiritual advancement and conscious evolution • Explains how the cycles of the 13 spirals of Universal energy and the 20 spirals of Earth energy interact on each calendar day as well as provides a Pleiadian perspective on how they influence us and the events in our lives • Offers practical examples of how you can consciously use the energies prevalent on a given day to your personal, spiritual benefit • Shares cosmic wisdom teachings from the Pleiadian group known as Laarkmaa Modern science has finally confirmed an essential component of the Pleiadian teachings: Our Universe is not linear; it moves in spirals. Human evolution also unfolds in spirals, rather than the linear progression we call “progress.” Sharing the cosmic wisdom teachings they have received from the Pleiadian group known as Laarkmaa, authors Pia Orleane and Cullen Baird Smith reveal a new system of Pleiadian-Earth energy astrology centered on the spiraling and interconnected movement of Universal and Earth energies, rather than on time, and explain how this new wave of Pleiadian wisdom can support human evolution. The authors identify two major spiral patterns that influence us: the 13 spirals of Universal energy that reflect cosmic laws and cosmic truth and the 20 spirals of Earth energy that reflect how humans experience themselves, each other, and their environment. They explain the dominant energy of each of the 13 Universal energy spirals and how they cycle in 13-day periods. They detail how these 13 Universal energy spirals interact with the cycles of the 20 Earth energy spirals on each calendar day, providing a hundred-year ephemeris and a Pleiadian perspective with which to understand the events in your life. Offering practical examples, they show how you can consciously use the energies prevalent on a given calendar day to your personal, spiritual advantage. Providing a map to transcend all systems that no longer serve us, freeing us to become the enlightened cosmic beings we truly are, the authors show how, with the wisdom of the Pleiadian-Earth energy system, we can each discover our specific gifts, work through the challenges of our own shadows, and individually and collectively evolve into a higher vibrational species.

This lively and engaging text offers a panorama of modern Chinese history through compelling biographies of the famous and obscure. Spanning five hundred years, they include a Ming dynasty medical pioneer, a Qing dynasty courtesan, a nineteenth-century Hong Kong business leader, a Manchu princess, an arsenal manager, a woman soldier, and a young maid in contemporary Beijing. Through the lives of these diverse people, readers will gain an understanding of the complex questions of modern Chinese history: What did it mean to be Chinese, and how did that change over time? How was learning encouraged and directed in imperial and post-imperial China? Was it possible to challenge entrenched gender roles? What effects did European imperialism have on Chinese lives? How did ordinary Chinese experience the warfare and political upheaval of twentieth-century China? What is the nature of the gap between urban and rural China in the post-Mao years? These richly researched biographies are written in an accessible and appealing style that will engage all readers interested in modern China. Contributions by: Daria Berg, John M. Carroll, Kenneth J. Hammond, Joshua H. Howard, Fabio Lanza, Oliver Moore, Pan Yihong, Hugh Shapiro, Kristin Stapleton, and Shuo Wang