Chinese Intellectuals on the World Frontier: Blazing the Black Path

(Hardback)

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Description

This is the study of the status of intellectuals in the People's Republic of China during and after the events of Tiananmen Square. Currently intellectuals find themselves on the cusp of change as the socialist state monopoly on academia, scientific and technical research is yielding to market pressures. Universities must be, at least partially, self-sustaining. Entrepreneurial niches, outside of state control, are opening for intellectuals as industry privatizes. The entire society has shifted its focus from ideology to material wealth. These dramatic changes have forced choices on China's thought workers. English-Lueck, in conducting over a hundred interviews, highlights the choices and constraints of nonestablishment Chinese intellectuals at the end of the 20th century as they establish a new identity for themselves, and perhaps even for China.

Reviews

This book is a mixture of genres: parts travel literature, part journal, part anthropology, and part sentimental excursion. These genres enrich the book and will appeal to the traveler, the cosmopolitan reader, the armcharis scholar, and the China watcher as well. For scholars in the United States, this book is a must because it provides them with a panoply of conversational topics and insights into the cultural backgrounds of their Chinese guests.....English -Lueck's methodology should inspire us to find similar ways to enrich our own writings and observations.-China Review International: Vol. 5, No. 2
"This book is a mixture of genres: parts travel literature, part journal, part anthropology, and part sentimental excursion. These genres enrich the book and will appeal to the traveler, the cosmopolitan reader, the armcharis scholar, and the China watcher as well. For scholars in the United States, this book is a must because it provides them with a panoply of conversational topics and insights into the cultural backgrounds of their Chinese guests.....English -Lueck's methodology should inspire us to find similar ways to enrich our own writings and observations."-China Review International: Vol. 5, No. 2

Author Bio

J. A. ENGLISH-LUECK is Associate Professor of Anthropology at San Jose State University. She is the author of Health in the New Age (1990) and is currently conducting research on Silicon Valley.