Seminar II: Pablo BLITSTEIN
09 NOVEMBER 22
IMH-EFEO Lecture Series
“French Historical Research and the Modern Era”
2022-2023 - People(s), State(s) and Citizens in Crisis
Speaker:
Prof. Pablo BLITSTEIN
Associate Professor, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS)
Title:
China, the Americas, and the vicissitudes of liberal ideas on the two sides of the Pacific (late 19th-early 20th century)
Date:
Monday, November 28, 2022 at 2:30 pm
Venue:
Conference Room 1, Archive Building, Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica
Abstract:
In this talk I would like to focus on how some topics of late nineteenth and early twentieth century liberalism could be used to justify political and economic coercion. For that purpose, I will explore the ideas of a group of Qing subjects who operated between East Asia and the Americas: the Society for the Protection of the Emperor (Baohuang hui), an association founded in Canada in 1899 by a group of Chinese exiles—most famously by Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao—and prominent people from the Chinese diaspora. While this association sought, among other things, to broaden the political freedoms and establish a parliamentary and constitutional monarchy in Qing China, I would like to concentrate on two elements that show in more detail the idea of “freedom” that the leaders of this association had in mind. On the one hand, I would like to suggest that the leaders of the Society for the Protection of the Emperor believed that obtaining political freedoms had to be done on the basis of what they called "despotism" (zhuanzhi). And on the other hand, I would like to show that at the time when the Society for the Protection of the Emperor was making investments in the Mexico of Porfirio Díaz, its leaders adopted an idea of despotism that was different from the one they had had while they were active in China: instead of a purely political despotism reminiscent of 17th-18th century “enlightened despotism”, they supported the idea of a despotic organization inspired by the management of large corporations and “trusts”.
The talk will be chaired by Prof. CHEN Chien-shou,
Assistant Research Fellow, Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica
The talk will be given in Chinese.
Registration is not required.
With the support of the French Office in Taipei (BFT)
lecture
“French Historical Research and the Modern Era”
2022-2023 - People(s), State(s) and Citizens in Crisis
Speaker:
Prof. Pablo BLITSTEIN
Associate Professor, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS)
Title:
China, the Americas, and the vicissitudes of liberal ideas on the two sides of the Pacific (late 19th-early 20th century)
Date:
Monday, November 28, 2022 at 2:30 pm
Venue:
Conference Room 1, Archive Building, Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica
Abstract:
In this talk I would like to focus on how some topics of late nineteenth and early twentieth century liberalism could be used to justify political and economic coercion. For that purpose, I will explore the ideas of a group of Qing subjects who operated between East Asia and the Americas: the Society for the Protection of the Emperor (Baohuang hui), an association founded in Canada in 1899 by a group of Chinese exiles—most famously by Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao—and prominent people from the Chinese diaspora. While this association sought, among other things, to broaden the political freedoms and establish a parliamentary and constitutional monarchy in Qing China, I would like to concentrate on two elements that show in more detail the idea of “freedom” that the leaders of this association had in mind. On the one hand, I would like to suggest that the leaders of the Society for the Protection of the Emperor believed that obtaining political freedoms had to be done on the basis of what they called "despotism" (zhuanzhi). And on the other hand, I would like to show that at the time when the Society for the Protection of the Emperor was making investments in the Mexico of Porfirio Díaz, its leaders adopted an idea of despotism that was different from the one they had had while they were active in China: instead of a purely political despotism reminiscent of 17th-18th century “enlightened despotism”, they supported the idea of a despotic organization inspired by the management of large corporations and “trusts”.
The talk will be chaired by Prof. CHEN Chien-shou,
Assistant Research Fellow, Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica
The talk will be given in Chinese.
Registration is not required.
With the support of the French Office in Taipei (BFT)
lecture