This essay argues that the democratic centralism of the revolutionary People’s Republic of China did produce a form of popular sovereignty. As the process that created the people as a political subject, democratic centralism produced popular sovereignty as an effect of the … Continue reading “Popular Sovereignty and Democratic Centralism in the People's Republic of China”
Issue: Issue 110 China and the Human, Part II
China and the Human, Part II
Is the Post- in Postsocialism the Post- in Posthumanism?
Shu-mei ShihThis essay brings into dialectical consideration the relationship between postsocialism and posthumanism in China through the life story of Marxist humanism from the global 1960s to the present across Eastern Europe, France, and the United States. It especially foregrounds the … Continue reading “Is the Post- in Postsocialism the Post- in Posthumanism?”
“China in Our Heads”: Althusser, Maoism, and Structuralism
Camille RobcisThis article examines Louis Althusser’s writings on China and Maoism in conjunction with his structural rereading of Marx, both of which occurred during the 1960s. In particular, I focus on the role of contradictions, antihumanism, and ideology in Althusser’s texts … Continue reading ““China in Our Heads”: Althusser, Maoism, and Structuralism”
Queer Human Rights in and against China: Marxism and the Figuration of the Human
Petrus LiuThis essay argues that the figure of the human in Marx is grounded neither in the “essence of man” nor in the metahistorical movement of capital. Instead, the human in Marx offers a moral standpoint based on the equality of … Continue reading “Queer Human Rights in and against China: Marxism and the Figuration of the Human”
China and the Human: A Visual Dossier
Ackbar AbbasA visual dossier on China and the human cannot just focus on recognizable human figures like the dissident, the human rights activist, or the victims of state violence, important as these figures are. There are also emergent figures that the … Continue reading “China and the Human: A Visual Dossier”
Fragments of the Political, or How We Dispose of Wonder
Michael DuttonThis article is concerned with the relationship between political intensity and the commodified world. How has that which could be and has been lived so intensely been transformed, marginalized, and disaggregated? What is the cost of this process of taming? … Continue reading “Fragments of the Political, or How We Dispose of Wonder”
Toward a “Great Unity”: Theories of Subjectivity in China in the Early Decades of the Modern Era
Wang XiaomingThis article discusses core social and political concepts regarding subjectivity widely used by Chinese intellectuals between 1840 and 1940, including ge ti (singular subject), ge ren (singular person), wo (I), and Da Tong (Great Unity). Collectively these concepts convey an understanding of human beings as interrelated individual subjects … Continue reading “Toward a “Great Unity”: Theories of Subjectivity in China in the Early Decades of the Modern Era”