Daedalus articles from March 1993

Daedalus archives from March 1993

Introduction: cultural perspectives. (China in Transformation)
March 22, 1993... Since the publication of the special Daedalus issue on "The Living Tree: The Changing Meaning of Being Chinese Today" in the spring of 1991, the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics has disintegrated, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia as unified...

A failed Chinese modernity. (China in Transformation)
March 22, 1993... As all former leninist dictatorships, rulers in Beijing also confront a crisis of legitimation.(1) Surface tranquillity in China hides moving tectonic forces that are reshaping China's national project. The most politically conscious Chinese...

Cultural identity and the politics of difference in South China. (Huanan) (China in Transformation)
March 22, 1993... The term "China" presents us with many faces and meanings. Scholars have been intrigued by the intensity of differentiating experiences beneath the surface of an enduring, naturalizing uniformity, and call for analytical tools that illuminate...

Double-edged swords cut both ways: law and legitimacy in the People's Republic of China. (China in Transformation)
March 22, 1993... When we Think of Trials in the People's Republic of China (PRC), our minds turn first to the prosecutions that followed the suppression in June 1989 of the "Beijing Spring" prodemocracy movement.(1) From the first expedited proceedings leading...

To reform a revolution: under the righteous mandate. (China in Transformation)
March 22, 1993... When the Republic of China was proclaimed on January 1, 1912, Sun Yat-sen called its government that "of a revolutionary era." Two months earlier, when he was in the United States and heard that the uprising in Wuchang was succeeding, he...

Cultural requisites for democracy in China: findings from a survey. (political culture) (China in Transformation)
March 22, 1993... Chinese political culture is often cited as an obstacle to the realization of democratic aspirations.(1) Its undemocratic attributes are generally thought to include authoritarianism, passivity, ignorance of politics, fear of politics, and...

The radicalization of China in the twentieth century. (China in Transformation)
March 22, 1993... Since the turn of the century, a radical mode of thinking has dominated the Chinese mind. The history of Chinese thought in the twentieth century may be interpreted as a process of rapid radicalization. As a matter of fact, never in China's...

Cultural and political inventions in modern China: the case of the Chinese "peasant." (China in Transformation)
March 22, 1993... The gods? Worship them by all means. But if you had only Lord Guan and the Goddess of Mercy and no peasant association, could you have overthrown the local tyrants and evil gentry? The gods and goddesses are indeed miserable objects. You have...

A search for China's soul. (China in Transformation )
March 22, 1993... On the morning of April 18, 1989, thousands of college students in Beijing filed silently into Tiananmen Square. Many laid wreaths around the Monument to the People's Heroes in memory of Hu Yaobang, Secretary General of the Chinese Communist...

China's "core" problem. (ideology) (China in Transformation)
March 22, 1993... China has been experiencing an economic boom in recent years. During most of the 1980s, as markets advanced and central planning retreated, the gross national product grew 9 to 10 percent annually.(1) It grew 12 percent in 1992.(2) Foreign...

Yan'an and the narrative reconstruction of reality. (political storytelling) (China in Transformation)
March 22, 1993... Death is the sanction of everything that the storyteller can tell. He has borrowed his authority from death. FICTIVE TRUTHS AS SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECIES People make stories out of events. They do so individually and collectively....