Economics and the New Chinese Republic: Sovereignty, Capitalism, and Freedom

This book project examines Chinese understandings of economics, nationalism, and culture in the Shanghai stock exchange bubble of 1921–1922. The discussion brings together the political conjuncture (the new republic), urban space (the coexistence of foreign enclaves and areas of Chinese jurisdiction), and the history of ideas (elite and vernacular). This inquiry encompasses the writings of Chinese economists, archives of financial institutions, exchange laws, legal cases, reportage, advertisements, and exchange fiction. These materials illuminate the translation of finance capitalism, in theory and practice, into Chinese culture and society showing how economic information was digested as the new social science and new political and financial institutions entered people’s daily consciousness. 

I would like to involve a research partner with native fluency in either Chinese or Japanese and an interest and skill in reading historical materials. If the student knows unsimplified Chinese, the work would involve reading early 20th-century Chinese newspaper articles. If the student’s native language is Japanese, the work would involve reading Japanese newspaper articles from the same period, and discussing with me the translation and interpretation of these materials.

Since I am a non-native speaker of these languages (and my Japanese skills, in particular, are limited) this partnership would facilitate my own translation and interpretation of materials. Participation in the project will appeal to students interested in questions about the global circulation of models of knowledge and categories of analysis that frame the modern world—as well as in practices of microhistory, close readings of texts, and historical interpretation.