Speaker: XIE, Jun

Short Bio: Jun Xie got his Ph.D. from New York University, B.A. and M.A from Peking University in the field of Chinese modern literature. His research interest includes critical theory, contemporary Chinese literature and culture studies, law and post-Mao social development. The title of his dissertation is “The Wild Individual: Politics and Aesthetics of Realism in Post-Mao China (1977-1984).” His publication includes “Determinate Negation: The prospect of radical enlightenment,”(Dialectic of Enlightenment in Rethinking Enlightenment in Global and Historical Contexts, Tokyo, 2011,UTCP Booklet 21/ICCT Series 1), “Revisiting the Great Divide: The Human in Postsocialism” (with Jennifer Dorothy Lee, Frontiers of Literary Studies in China, 2016(4)), “The Machiavellian, the Philistine, the Romantic: Rereading Human, Ah, Human!”(Frontiers of Literary Studies in China, 2016(4)).

Abstract: Written at the age of 27, the last year of Lu Xun’s Japan period (1908), Toward a Refutation of Malevolent Voices is an uncompleted and seemingly immature essay which only appeared fleetingly in a student-run journal at the time and has long been ignored by students of Lu Xun. But for Japanese scholar Ito Toramaru (伊藤虎丸), who follows Takeuchi Yoshimi (竹内好) in searching the “conversion” (回心) moment of Lu Xun, the refutation of the “malevolent voices,” that is, the refutation of the late-Qing enlightenment discourse, illustrated the tremendous difficulty for Asian intellectuals to respond to the intrusion of western modernity. Later, Wang Hui in his recent article about the uniqueness of this essay continues the inquiry of Asian modernity, and asks, what is enlightenment? In my lecture, I will introduce these studies, and hope to contribute to this discussion in three aspects. First, to understand Lu Xun’s thought, I will draw particular attention to an ancient philosophical text, Zhuang Zi’s Equality of Everything (齐物论), which is reinterpreted by Lu Xun’s mentor Zhang Taiyan at the same period , and which, I will argue, preconditions Lu Xun’s theoretical elaboration. Second, I will revisit what Toramaru finds in Lu Xun’s advocation of superstition, the atheist tendency. I will try to compare it with the radical enlightenment tradition of Spinoza in the early European modernity. Third, I will try to explain Lu Xun’s refutation under the concrete historical situation of Tokyo Chinese society in the last few years of Qing dynasty, including the late-Qing enlightenment discourse, the jingoism trend among revolutionary Chinese students, the prevalent civilization theory as general cultural and political atmosphere, etc. In the end, I will attempt to show how this immature article of Lu Xun marked a brand new departure for the radical Chinese modernity.